Supreme Court strikes out non-bailable offences law

The Supreme Court has by a 5-2 decision struck out Ghana’s law on non-bailable offences. The court described the law, which has been in existence for nearly three decades, as “unconstitutional.”

Per the ruling which was made today [Thursday], a court that has the jurisdiction to hear cases such as murder, rape, treason, piracy, defilement among others has to grant suspects bail.

The Supreme Court made the ruling in a case titled Martin Kpebu v Attorney General filed in February 2015.

Under Ghanaian law, suspects facing charges such as treason, subversion, murder, robbery, hijacking, piracy, rape and defilement or escape from lawful custody cannot be admitted to bail. The statutory restrictions are in line with Section 96 (7) of Ghana’s Criminal Procedure Code as amended.

The same statute forbids Judges from granting bail in cases where a person is being held for extradition to a foreign country. Again, Ghanaian law – after relevant amendments during the fourth Parliament of the fourth republic – prohibits presiding judges from granting bail to suspects standing trial for breaking the nation’s drug laws.

The Kufuor administration, which championed the controversial armaments in a bid to tame drug-related offenses in Ghana, argued that the amendments were necessary to stopping the phenomenon of drug suspects jumping bail, fleeing the jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the apex court is yet to set the appropriate conditions after the ruling.

Decongestion of prisons

A lot of human right activists have complained about the overcrowding nature of prisons in the country.

Ghana has 43 prison facilities and according to reports, 28 are said to be overcrowded by as much as 358%.

If the Supreme Court’s ruling to anything to go by, it is expected to help decongest the country’s prisons.

Help decongest prisons

The Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood in 2015, urged judges to help decongest the country’s prisons through their sentencing.

She noted that the prisons should be decongested because the construction of new prisons alone will not solve human rights violations of the prisoners.

“Our prisons are overcrowded. Human rights advocates are worried about the treatment meted out to both convicted prisoners and accused persons on remand, but building bigger and better prisons cannot be the answer or solution to the persistent complaint of overcrowding,” she stated.

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