Mark Darlington Osae, the artiste manager who filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drugs Authority’s (FDA) directive banning celebrities from advertising alcoholic products says he is disappointed after the Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed his suit.
“I am disappointed. We are disappointed in the creative arts space with the ruling of the supreme court which went 5-2 against us. Two of the judges went in our favour and five went in favour of the FDA,” he said on a Joy FM programme.
According to him “one of the things that he sought to achieve was to ignite that conversation and also show people in the creative arts that it is possible to stand up sometimes for your right within the space”
The artiste manager stated that in order for future directives to be well formulated, laws and policies that impact the interests of the creative industry needed to be tested.
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“Because when rules and laws are done and they affect us we need to be interested and we need to test the laws against some of these decisions so that in future when some of these directives and laws are being formulated, they would have to scrutinise them thoroughly to make sure that the right things are done,” he said.
Addressing the outcome of the proceedings, Mark Osae stated that they saw the case as an avenue to scrutinise other directives that impede the interest of creatives.
“For me, it is a win because now it has opened the doors for people to start looking at some of these decisions that affect us in the creative space and hopefully we should be getting such test cases going to court for interpretation and for clarity. We should not sit on the fence and talk online about these issues,” he added.
The Supreme Court, by a majority decision, upheld the FDA’s directive which prohibits celebrities and popular personalities from promoting alcoholic products.
Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo stated that the FDA’s directive does not violate the Constitution during her brief presentation of the decision at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, June 19. The court’s judgment means that celebrities cannot endorse alcoholic beverages.
