What price freedom?
The various news outlets were agog last week with the news of the awarding of GH¢800,000 to Yaw Appiah, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 19 years.
This news item has reignited a difficult but necessary conversation: how does a society value lost freedom?
Yaw Appiah's case, just like a few in the compensation pipeline in which I’m personally involved (Yaw Asante Agyekum, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years and the former Assemblyman of Denkyira Obuasi, William Baah who was wrongfully jailed for just over eight years) underscores a painful truth – while justice may eventually come, it often arrives discounted.
Yaw Appiah, after nearly two decades behind bars for a conviction later deemed a miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court thought GH¢800,000 appropriate. Yet by any serious global or African standard that sum is strikingly inadequate.
Across jurisdictions, compensation for wrongful imprisonment is not symbolic – it is substantive. In New Zealand, for example, Alan Hall who spent close to 19 years in prison was awarded approximately $5,000,000 in compensation.
That translates to over $260,000 U.S. per year for wrongful incarceration. In the UK, there is a cap of £1.3 million for 10 or more years of false imprisonment.
The African Court on Human and People’s Rights awarded $1,000,000 U.S. posthumously to the family of Norbert Zongo, a Burkinabe journalist wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years.
Reflect
Even though the figures differ in different jurisdictions, they reflect a consistent principle: compensation must be proportional to the gravity of the harm suffered –loss of liberty, dignity, family life and economic opportunity.
This principle is anchored in international law, particularly Article 14(6) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which mandates that victims of miscarriage of justice shall be compensated.
Measured against these global standards, the GH¢800,000, roughly $50,000, amounts to less than $3000 per year of imprisonment. This does not properly compensate for all the losses that wrongful incarceration brings in its wake for the individual.
African jurisdictions are increasingly recognising the need for meaningful compensation. South African courts have awarded substantial damages in unlawful detention cases, often factoring in dignity, trauma and societal stigma.
Ghana itself, acknowledges the seriousness of wrongful convictions under Article 14(7), which provides for compensation where a miscarriage of justice is established. However, the Supreme Court has not thus far awarded very substantial amounts.
The court has emphasised that each case must reflect its peculiar harm, including reckless prosecution and proven innocence.
Reality
However, the reality is that in practice the awards remain disproportionately low. If the injustice in Appiah's case appears stark, it pales when viewed alongside the circumstances of Yaw Asante Agyekum. He entered prison at just 20 years, effectively losing his entire youth and most productive years.
He lost the chance of seeing his daughter grow and his mother died whilst he was in prison.
It is hoped that by the time his case for compensation comes up, our Supreme Court will deliver a resounding message: that the courts will not compromise on compensating for wrongful incarceration.
This is because no reasonable compensation framework can ignore the traumatic aspects of wrongful imprisonment.
They represent not just years lost but a life interrupted in many ways -‒ economically, socially and above all psychologically -‒ through no fault of the victim of wrongful imprisonment.
If Ghana is to align with global and emerging African standards, compensation must be recalibrated along global practices.
The Supreme Court is urged to adopt per year benchmarking.
There should be a baseline annual compensation figure.
Then there should be aggravating factors in additional damages for loss of family life, psychological trauma and state misconduct.
Next in line should be economic loss which will factor in lost earnings based on profession and age at incarceration.
There should also be reintegration costs for housing, healthcare and vocational retraining.
Whilst the justices of the Supreme Court must be applauded for increasing the amount for wrongful imprisonment relative to previous cases before the Yaw Appiah judgement, there is an urgent need to further raise the bar as anything less would seem to create the impression that human dignity is undervalued and the catastrophic consequences of wrongful imprisonment are not taken very seriously.
Compensation is not charity.
It is a constitutional and moral obligation. If the justice system is to maintain legitimacy, it must not only correct its errors but fully account for them.
The real question is whether Ghana is prepared to put a price on freedom or continue to discount it.
The writer is a lawyer.
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