Let's promote justice - IGP

Page 31: Daily Graphic, July 17, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Quaye, has called for a healthy partnership and collaboration among all institutions involved in the criminal justice delivery system to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the dispensation of justice in the country.
“Criminals should not celebrate or feast over the spoils of criminality on account of the weaknesses which arise from our non-co-operation,” he said.
In an interview after participating in a high-level dialogue on the promotion of justice for stakeholder institutions, including human rights advocacy groups, in Accra yesterday, Mr Quaye stressed the need for the Ghana Police Service, the Attorney-General’s Department, the Judicial Service, the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) and the Ghana Bar Association to co-operate as interrelated, inter-connected and interdependent institutions to achieve the ends of justice.
He said those institutions should be complementing one another’s statutory work towards the same goal, that is, the greater benefit of the country, but not see themselves as “being in competition with one another as sister institutions”.
The IGP cited areas such as criminal prosecutions, dealing with remand prisoners, granting of bail and delays in the criminal justice systems which required greater collaboration to resolve.
He said the responsibility for enforcing law and order in any legal jurisdiction had never been the sole burden of the police.
He said the enterprise of criminal justice administration entailed a positive collaborative involvement of the police, the courts, the A-G’s Department, the GPS, the Legal Aid Scheme, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), as well as other civil society stakeholder institutions whose mandate made them important partners in the pursuit of the promotion and protection of human rights, towards achieving freedom and justice.
“Besides these institutions, individual citizens also have a civic duty to contribute towards the maintenance of law and order and the preservation of societal harmony.
Mr Quaye explained that law enforcement was sometimes seen as being at odds with civil liberties, as the process of enforcing the law sometimes led to the use of minimum levels of force in order to restrain individual members of society.
Touching on the specific challenges confronting justice delivery, he said by law the police had responsibility for mounting criminal prosecutions, mostly in second degree felonies and misdemeanours.
He said although the A-G’s Department had the power to prosecute in a large majority of cases, it did not preclude the role of the police to conduct investigations, prepare case dockets, charge suspects for court, initially arraign and escort suspects to the courts.
“In all these processes, the general public tends to make the police the focal point of sharp criticisms when problems such as delays or lapses in the judicial processes occur. Regrettably, the police often take the blame, even for adjournments made by the courts of competent jurisdiction,” he said.
Mr Quaye said fingers were also often pointed at the police when accused persons were discharged for lack of evidence or delays by the A-G’s office delays in studying criminal dockets.
He, however, conceded that some policemen also, by their professional incompetence or negligence, contributed in a large measure to stalling and undermining the judicial process.
According to him, another area of serious concern to the Police Administration was the problem investigators and prosecutors encountered in dealing with remand prisoners.
He said although the problems of dealing with remand prisoners cut across the work of all the institutions involved in criminal justice administration, “the police often come up for adverse comments when things go wrong, especially when there are problems regarding transporting prisoners/suspects to and from the prisons/police stations, the expeditious issue of remand warrants and the custody and feeding of prisoners for short periods when cases are adjourned.
Mr Quaye expressed regret that sometimes prisoners were escorted all the way from the Nsawam Prison to Accra only for the mentioning of the cases, for duties or adjournments by the courts.
He said bail granting had become the “waterloo” of many police investigations and the entire trial process.
The IGP said the discretionary power to grant police enquiry bail had often been abused by some police investigators, with suspects involved in serious cases being granted bail under dubious circumstances without regard to appropriate procedures.
He said in other circumstances, the courts had granted bail on the merits of individual cases in which the police got the blame when problems cropped up, especially in cases when suspects absconded.
Mr Quaye said it was in view of some of those challenges that he was calling for healthy partnership among all the stakeholder institutions to ensure that the motto of the country, “Freedom and Justice”, was exercised.
“The Police Administration is doing all it can to ensure that its personnel involved in criminal investigations and prosecutions in all our communities accord the maximum levels of co-operation to our sister institutions,” he said.