Editorial: Refreshing suggestion, Chief Justice

Gradually, the need to take a second look at the country’s penal system and its ramifications for our democratic dispensation and respect for human rights is gathering momentum, with the call by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, for a review of the existing law on non-bailable offences being the latest.

In 1992, the country embarked on the path to democracy, a path that thrives on the guarantee of individual freedoms and civil liberties.

The Constitution also guarantees the right to dignity of all persons, regardless of status, religion, tribe, among other such positions.

The new dispensation presumed a person to be innocent unless proven guilty by a competent court.

It also prescribes that a person arrested for an offence has the right to be granted bail within 48 hours or be arraigned.

However, the statute books still have caveats to the effect that some instances of offences, referred to as felonies, are non-bailable and such include treason, murder, hijacking, robbery, breaking from lawful custody, piracy, defilement, dealing in narcotics and rape.

While the drafters of the law may have had good reasons for placing such offences within the non-bailable group, the changing face of jurisprudence and the administration of justice requires a review of some of these laws.

This is especially so when our prisons have become over-populated, with the people who are on remand due to the non-bailable nature of their offences taking a sizeable percentage.

There is a popular maxim within the legal arena to the effect that it is better for an accused person to walk free than to have an innocent person thrown into jail.

This is informed by the fact that justice must be based on the principles of equity and fairness.

And so when the prosecution is in doubt, the lingering doubt must inure to the benefit of the accused until such a time that the prosecution can adduce better evidence.

First-time offenders are mixed up with hardened criminals. Persons who eventually are found innocent of the crimes for which they are charged are made to spend days, weeks and sometimes years in prison with hardened criminals.

Some of these people who lack self-control are negatively influenced by hardened criminals and they return to society worse off than they were when they were sent to jail.

The Daily Graphic has held the opinion that prisons are avenues to correct deviant actions by persons who choose to exhibit those behaviours overtly and thus inflict pain on society.

Unfortunately, the over-population in our prisons is turning otherwise repentant people into hardened criminals.

The time has come for an overhaul of the criminal administration system of our country and, without doubt, the country does not lack the requisite expertise to undertake such an assignment.

That is why the Daily Graphic considers the call by the Chief Justice very timely and a cap on the calls that have been made by many human rights bodies for a second look to be taken at our penal system.

We urge all the stakeholders to rally forces in order to de-congest our prisons and make them more reformatory, instead of  an avenue for equipping persons to become hardened criminals.