900 Prisoners granted amnesty to mark Republic Day
President John Dramani Mahama, has granted amnesty to 900 prisoners from across the country’s 43 prison installations to mark this year’s Republic Day which falls today, July 1.
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This brings to 2,004 the number of prisoners pardoned by the President in two years. In July last year, 1,104 prisoners were pardoned.
July 1 commemorates Ghana’s attainment of Republican status in 1960 which made the country a sovereign nation capable of governing itself.
Ghana’s march to a Republican status began with its independence on March 6, 1957, the first African country south of the Sahara to do so.
On July 1,1960, Ghana became a Republic and the Republican Constitution declared that the monarch of United Kingdom had ceased to be Ghana’s head of state and that there should be an elected President who was at once the head of state, the executive head of government and a Member of Parliament.
Then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah won the first presidential election and became the first President of the Republic of Ghana.
The prisoners granted amnesty this year include a 92-year-old inmate, those with ill-health, those who have advanced in age and inmates who have exhibited satisfactory behaviour.
A statement from the Ministry of the Interior, which announced the Presidential pardon, said the prisoners included 883 first offenders who had served half or more of their sentences and a prisoner who was very ill.
It also said 14 prisoners on death row who had served at least 10 years had had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, while one prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, who had served 10 years, had been given a definite term of 20 years.
Good news
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Chairman of the Ghana Prisons Council, Rev. Stephen Yenusom Wengam, said the release of the prisoners “is one the greatest news we have had this year because one of the cardinal points of the ongoing prison reform is to decongest the prisons and this is a giant step that will help us deal with the issue of decongesting the prisons”.
He said the council was not tackling the decongestion from one angle, which was why when the council was sworn into office, it met with the Chief Justice, the Inspector General of Police, the Attorney General, the Minister of the Interior and the President to discuss the issue of remand prisoners and how that was creating difficulties in carrying out the mandate of reforming the prisons.
Rev. Wengam said according to the United Nations’ minimum rules, prison inmates had to be classified and categorised, “but because most of our prisons are not purpose built — only three out of the 43 prisons are purpose built — we are not able to carry out that directive”.
He stated that until the problems of Ghana’s criminal justice system, such as the weaknesses in employing the parole system and non-custodial sentences, were dealt with at the roots, “we can grant amnesty every year but we will still have problems because currently 21 per cent of the 15,000 prison population is on remand, while 79 per cent are convicted”.
“Assuming we are able to deal with the 21 per cent at any given time, you can be sure that we wouldn’t have too many problems with the issue of congestion of the prisons,” he said.
Rev. Wengam lamented the fact that there was no hospital or doctors trained by the Ghana Prison Service to cater for the thousands of inmates, officers and their dependants.
Word to released prisoners
Meanwhile, the President has asked the pardoned prisoners to conduct themselves properly to avoid breaking the law again.
He also urged the public and the families of those granted amnesty to receive the pardoned prisoners back and help integrate them into society.
Article 72 of the 1992 Constitution gives authority to the President to use his prerogative of mercy, to grant amnesty to the prisoners.
He acts upon the advice of the Council of State and the recommendation of the Ghana Prison Service to grant amnesty.
Speaking to Joy FM, the Spokesperson for the Prison Service, DSP Vitalis Aryeh, said the required paperwork had begun for the release of the pardoned prisoners in two days.
“There are two kinds of paperwork to be done and the release has just come out and it cuts across the country. When we get the list, we will start working on their papers and this will not take more than two days,” he said.
Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh