A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, has suggested massive reforms to shape Ghana’s criminal jurisprudence for speedy trials.
He proposed that the General and the Law Reform Commission should seriously consider the introduction of a possible amendment in the Courts Act, or the Evidence Act to make a trial proceed with minimum interruptions, and only grant a limited widow of an appeal in respect of an interlocutory matter such as submission of no case to answer.
According to the judge, the lessons drawn from the Republic versus Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie suggest that certain clauses in the Constitution give room to lawyers to cause undue delays of the delivery of justice.
While concluding his decision on the Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie trial, he noted that the suit, which commenced on of December 22, 2017, took almost two years and half years to complete as a result of the lawyers over reliance of Supreme Court interpretation of Article 19(2)(e)(g) of the 1992 Constitution to cause delays.
He added that the greater part of the delay in this trial was the persistent interlocutory appeals that were filed, saying: “No one can begrudge any party that intends to test the rightfulness or otherwise of a decision or a ruling by a trial Judge, more so when the rules do not frown on them.”
Justice Kyei Baffour stated that what surprises him was how in a simple trial there could be as much as one thousand interlocutory appeals, as any decision to admit or reject a document, or any decision to allow or overrule a question being asked in examination in chief or cross examination can be a subject of an interlocutory appeal, with its attendant applications for stay of proceedings.
Thus, the admission or rejection of a document does not mean that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred, and a document may be admitted alright, but may have little or scant probative value.
In his view, it is when after judgment an appeal is lodged that a party can bring up the call of the trial court on a document that was admitted or rejected, and how that call has affected the outcome of the case by resulting in a substantial miscarriage of justice.
“Any claim of any serious fight against public sector corruption would be an uphill task for the nation if the rules that we operate move at a snail’s pace. The citizens of Ghana in whom the sovereignty of the nation resides will continue to mourn that the poor without lawyers are tried within a short time, but the rich and powerful who are able to afford the best of lawyers use the rules to drag cases in court ad infinitum,” he postulated.
He noted that with the introduction of wit case management conference in criminal cases, such an innovation would give full meaning to the Constitutional provision under article
19(1) of the Constitution – that a person charged with a criminal offence shall be given a fair hearing within a reasonable time.
Justice Kyei Baffour called for an urgent need for a complete the overhaul of the both Act 29 and Act 30, as the decision of the Supreme Court makes the procedure under Act 30 now anachronistic.
He said these necessary amendments are effected to take away interlocutory appeals on admission or rejection of documents, with the sole purpose to cause enough delay and stultify criminal trials when there is no evidence to demonstrate how such a ruling has occasioned a substantial miscarriage of justice.
According to him, it would send cold shivers down the spines of corrupt public officials that when their misdeeds come to light and are arraigned in court, their fate would be known in not more than six months, such persons would definitely be deterred from corrupt acts.
According to him, these are the innovations needed for public officials to know that public funds are not meant to be used as personal property.
The post Justice Kyei Baffour calls for overhaul of Acts 29 & 30 appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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