CHRAJ, NCCE, where are you in this era of mob justice?
Spontaneous mourning of the lynched Captain Maxwell Adams Mahama of the Fifth Battalion of Infantry in the line of duty is going on across the country, especially as new evidence and video tapes emerge of the noble man’s final moments.
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They are pictures of horror, agony and helplessness, as his assailants would not relent in their mission to end the life of a budding dutiful soldier for no crime committed.
Apart from the dishonourable and dastardly behaviour the murder represents, the reprehensible incident brings to the fore failure in our criminal justice system, with institutions set up to undertake certain critical mandates shirking their responsibilities.
The 1992 Constitution states: “No person shall be deprived of his life intentionally, except in the exercise of the execution of a sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence under the laws of Ghana of which he has been convicted.”
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is a constitutionally mandated body set up to check corruption and secure administrative justice.
In Article 218 (f) of the Constitution, CHRAJ is also “to educate the public as to human rights and freedoms...”.
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has an even broader mandate in civic education under Chapter 19 of the Constitution. It includes working to inculcate in Ghanaians “awareness of their civic responsibilities and an appreciation of their rights and obligations as free people”.
The Daily Graphic, hereby, questions why CHRAJ and the NCCE are not educating the people on their rights, responsibilities and obligations. Is the NCCE waiting until elections to educate the public on how to thumb-print and the CHRAJ to investigate corruption and abuse of office?
We urge CHRAJ and the NCCE to look beyond the public purse and pursue other lines and sources of development financing to prosecute their mandates. We can say on authority, from where we sit, of the abundance of such funding across the globe. Funding for civic awareness and advocacy is excessively available and around us.
The Daily Graphic and its sister publications have always been development-oriented and, therefore, support such efforts to get the citizenry better educated on issues of civic rights and responsibilities.
In Ghana, we have the tendency to pronounce people guilty before they are proved so by a competent court of law. Also, why is it that if we establish guilt, we cannot hand over the suspects to the police?
This trend is fast growing and becoming embedded in our culture and social fabric because in the past people got away with it. The law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system in general have slacked every now and then, leaving people to take to instant justice.
While the Daily Graphic calls on the state to do well to restore public confidence in the police and the criminal justice system by punishing wrongdoers, we are equally urging the speedy adjudication of cases and we think the e-Justice portal should help the wheels of justice to now run faster. We know that justice delayed is justice denied.