19 Remand prisoners set free in Kumasi under Justice For All programme
Nineteen remand prisoners yesterday gained their freedom when three judges, sitting in three small cubicles at the Kumasi Central Prison, tried their cases within hours and set them free.
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The prisoners received justice under the Justice For All programme. They had been on remand for periods ranging from five months to five years.
They included a young woman who is eight months pregnant and a mother nursing a five-month-old baby.
At the same Fast Track Court sitting, with the aid of lawyers from the Attorney-General’s Office, 27 other prisoners were either granted bail or had their bail conditions varied.
However, not all of them were fortunate; the judges refused the application for bail for 18 of them, while four had their applications struck out.
Mr Justice Clemence J. Honyenuga sat as an Appeal Court judge, while Justices Abdul Iddrissu and Constant Hometowu sat as High Court judges.
The exercise was organised by the POS Foundation Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, with sponsorship from STAR-Ghana.
Mistakes of judges
Briefing the media after the court’s sitting, Mr Justice Honyenuga said most of the cases emanated from the circuit and magistrate courts which were slightly tainted with errors.
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He wondered why after constant and periodic retraining of magistrate and circuit court judges, they continued to commit the same errors for which prisoners had been remanded.
He indicated that the Chief Justice had instituted measures, including ‘Remand Prisoners Returns’, under which circuit court judges and magistrates were required to submit cases of remand prisoners under their adjudication to the CJ.
Justice Honyenuga
Sharing his personal experience after the six-hour court sitting, Mr Justice Honyenuga said some of the cases were either not properly investigated or should not have dragged on for long periods to earn accused persons such long periods on remand.
He gave the example of the mother of the five-month-old baby who had been on remand because she was wrongfully accused of killing her boyfriend, who had actually committed suicide.
He explained that when the boyfriend realised that his girlfriend was about eight months’ pregnant, he insisted that she aborted the foetus, but she refused.
Annoyed at the decision of the young woman, the boyfriend hit her with a stick and fearing that she had died, he stabbed himself to death.
He said unfortunately for the woman, those who came around accused her of stabbing the boyfriend to death, for which reason she was arrested, arraigned and had since been languishing in jail.
She even gave birth to her son in jail.