Prosecutors urged to bail remand prisoners

THE Director of Welfare of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr I. K. Tsegah, has urged state prosecutors to bail out remand prisoners who committed minor offences to help decongest the country’s prisons.
“If you cannot prosecute them, then you should allow them their freedom,” he said.
Mr Tsegah made the appeal in an interview with the Daily Graphic after the official opening of registration for inmates of the Nsawam Medium Security Prison under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He noted that most remand prisoners who were first-time offenders and who committed minor offences could have done something better with their lives if they had been given the opportunity, instead of being in prison, some for more that 15 years.
He said apart from the problem of congestion in the country’s prisons, remand prisoners often refused to comply with prison regulations because they were not convicted criminals.
“Remand prisoners can be very troublesome to deal with and you cannot treat them like convicted prisoners. You have to treat them like ordinary people, since they are only suspects,” he noted.
He stressed that first-time offenders could be given the benefit of the doubt that they would show some remorse after the experience they had been through and not go near any criminal activity.
He, therefore, suggested that first-time offenders with minor offences could be bailed out on licence for them to report themselves to the police stations according to a schedule.
Mr Tsegah said that would save government some money, decongest the prisons and offer remand prisoners an opportunity to be good citizens once again.
His appeal was in reaction to a recent story, “AG orders review of cases”, published in the Daily Graphic of September 19, 2008.
The story said the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Joe Ghartey, had directed three bodies to review cases involving 300 remand prisoners whose warrants had expired.
The Attorney-General’s Directive came after a non-governmental organisation, the Centre for Human Rights and Civil Liberties (CHURCIL), had reported that 300 remand prisoners were being held illegally at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison after their warrants had expired.
The report said the expiration of the remand warrant meant that those remand prisoners were being kept illegally unless a court renewed the warrants for their continued detention but the prison authorities could not release them because they had not received any court order to that effect.
Mr Ghartey said it was untenable for remand prisoners to be in custody for more than a year without trial, adding that his outfit was concerned about the large number of remand prisoners which had greatly contributed to congestion in the prisons.
He said the issue of congestion in the prisons and its related problems resulted in the initiation of the “Justice for All Project” which was aimed at bringing justice to the doorstep of all citizens, especially the vulnerable in society.