‘Don’t put indictable offences before Circuit Courts’
The Supervising High Court Judge for the Volta Region, Mr Justice Nicholas Charles Agbevor, has cautioned the police not to put any indictable offence before the Circuit Court, not even for remand purposes.
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The Circuit Court did not have jurisdiction to handle such cases, he said.
According to the judge, more often offenders were placed before the circuit court, which in turn remanded them, leading to long incarceration without committal of the offenders to the High Court.
By law, offenders are first supposed to be put before the district court where after committal, the accused persons are put before the high court, presided over by a judge and a seven-member jury to face trial.
Speaking at the opening of the criminal assizes of the High Court for 2014/2015 legal year in Ho, Mr Justice Agbevor observed that non-compliance with the law by the police in the municipality and the circuit court was causing unnecessary delays to the trial of such cases and, therefore, called for a stop to that.
Criminal assizes
The criminal assizes system is where the High Court is constituted by a single judge with selected jurors to participate in the administration of justice in indictable offences such as murder, manslaughter, rape, among others.
Thirty-three cases made up of 23 rapes, two robberies, two manslaughters and six murders have been listed to be distributed among the three high court justices in the region to preside on.
Petition from prisoners
Mr Justice Agbevor said he had received many petitions from prisoners, especially from the Kpando prisons lamenting being kept in custody for years without appearing before any court for trial.
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Records, he said, had showed that serious delays occurred between police investigations and submission of case dockets to the Attorney-General’s office for advice.
“In some cases, dockets never reach the Attorney General’s office because either the investigators are retired, dead, dismissed or proceeded on peacekeeping assignments without proper handing over of dockets. Sometimes, the dockets can not be traced,” he said.
The issue, according to the judge, had been discussed at the appropriate levels and action would soon be taken.
Jurors
He advised the jurors not to take their call as an opportunity to make money and warned that any of them who would be caught in that web would face the full rigours of the law.
The Chief Justice, he stated, had been relentless on improving the image and performance of the service, adding that judicial staff should, therefore, do their job as required and help erase the negative publicity of corruption.
Speedy trials
A Senior State Attorney, Mr Simon Adatsi, acknowledged the important role of jurors and pleaded with them, as well as the police and the prison authorities to make time consciousness and punctuality their hallmark.
A representative of the Volta Regional branch of the Ghana Bar Association, Mr Nelson Kporha, called for maximum co-operation between the Attorney General’s Department, the police and witnesses for speedy trial.
The Deputy Volta Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr William Akpesey and a representative of the Prison Service were present at the ceremony.