Ataa Ayi, Asante Agyekum, Criminal Justice (3)

The intense and hectic life that ‘yours truly’ has undergone over these past two weeks has been exhausting and draining. Securing the release from prison custody of Yaw Asante Agyekum has been professionally gratifying but disastrous in terms of privacy. 

I have been overwhelmed by media engagements, which have negatively impacted my normal routines and schedules. Media houses, print journalists, bloggers, etc., have all been lining up to have a piece of my client and myself.

Pity the celebrities in the public eye — excessive public adulation and mobbing are not good for anyone’s health.

Alas, the euphoria is dying down. Phew! I can’t wait to have my privacy back.

Now to serious matters — forgive me, but I had to get this off my chest.

Defects

We have, in the last two editions of this column, been analysing the defects within the criminal justice system using the Agyekum case as a reference point.

We will be concluding that exercise in this week’s article.
One of the undoubted ‘sins’ of the system, which coheres even today, is the small matter of remand.

Much as the problem of accused persons on remand has significantly reduced, as a result of the ‘Justice for All’ programme, the problem still exists.

There are still a sizeable number of accused persons currently on remand. Yaw Asante Agyekum spent eight years on remand, very much against his constitutionally guaranteed right to a speedy trial.

A telling conversation I had with a senior policeman revealed some of the reasons why the phenomenon persists. He recalled a case he was investigating at Dunkwa-on-Offin in the Central Region.

He had sent a young man, accused of stealing two grasscutter rodents from a hunter, to the Obuasi prison on remand following a court hearing. The case was adjourned for a fortnight.

Because of the constraints of logistics (his unit did not have a car for his duties), he sometimes had to use his own money to travel to Obuasi for court hearings.

He did not attend court for some two months as he couldn’t afford the transport fares. All this time, the young man languished in gaol until the officer came into funds to enable him to attend court. 

The officer told me that this sad anecdote was symptomatic of the malaise prevalent in the remand system.

Similarly, in cases where the investigator, for one reason or another (like transfers, sheer neglect of duty, lack of money, etc.), cannot follow up on persons remanded in custody, the affected accused stay in prison for several years.

To forestall such problems, there has to be a system at various police stations or courts to monitor remand cases.

If, for instance, a person on remand has not been taken to court for some time, the monitoring system should be able to reveal this so that action is taken.

It is also suggested that the prison authorities inform prosecutors routinely of cases on remand in order to offset the occurrence of such cases.

Regarding the swift disposal