Guidelines on sentencing launched
The Ghana Sentencing Guidelines, a document which seeks to ensure consistency in how judges and magistrates pass sentences in all courts, has been launched in Accra.
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The guidelines also seek to foster appropriate sentencing after conviction and make the public to know the principles a judge or a magistrate uses when passing a sentence.
Another aim of the guidelines document, which was launched by the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, in Accra yesterday, is to reduce prison overcrowding by stopping the passing of excessive sentences.
The Chief Justice initiated the process for the guidelines. She set up a development group about two years ago which worked with the British High Commission’s Criminal Justice Advisor, Mr Roger Coventry, for 18 months to produce the guidelines. The views of judges and magistrates were sought during the deliberation stage.
After that the guidelines were piloted for three months in courts in Accra, Kumasi and Tema.
Requirements
The guidelines require judges and magistrates to take into account the offence itself and the effect upon victims and witnesses.
The other requirements are for the consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors and the accused’s personal circumstances.
Different levels of seriousness are established for each offence to ensure that the sentences reflect the level of wrongdoing.
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Discretion of judges
In her remarks, Justice Wood said the guidelines were to assist judges and magistrates in their rather difficult work of sentencing.
She explained that the guidelines were only to guide judges and magistrates, and that the “the judge’s discretion is not taken away or whittled down completely.”
The Chief Justice said people were perplexed as to how public officers were given short sentences or escaped sentences, while young offenders were made to serve long jail sentences.
Again, she said, people wondered why two persons with similar offences were handed down sentences with a wide disparity, adding that judges were not always to blame because they applied the same criminal code.
She indicated, however, that other factors such as the past record of the offender might have been considered by the judges.
Justice Wood said the sentencing policy should build a humane society, adding that “sentencing must be just and fair and fit the crime.”
She said the country’s prisons were overcrowded, and stressed the need for young criminals not to be exposed to hardened criminals in prisons.
She, therefore, called for collaborative effort among stakeholders to ensure non custodial sentencing where the offenders would be made to offer community service and other requirements.
Criminal Justice Advisor
For his part, Mr Coventry said fair, efficient, modern rules and guidelines were essential to justice.
He said the demands made by justice were always evolving, growing greater and required imaginative and innovative thought.
Therefore, Mr Coventry said, the guidelines would ensure principled and methodical setting of sentences and “ensure everyone knows how sentences are arrived at.”