Offenders of crime in the country have been faced with many legal challenges
The government will amend the Criminal Procedure Act, 1960 (Act 30)
The Attorney General’s Department is to introduce two pieces of legislation expected to ensure that the criminal justice system in the country is made less cumbersome.
This, the Attorney General, Godfred Dame, said, is to make the procedure for the trial of criminal cases in Ghana and the kinds of punishment inflicted after trial much more fulfilling.
The two important pieces of legislation which will have far-reaching consequences for the criminal justice system in the country, he said while on a visit to the James Camp detention facility in Accra.
“They are, first, an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act, 1960 (Act 30) to incorporate plea bargaining firmly into the trial of cases. By this amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act, plea bargaining will be permissible in all cases save a few that will be set out in the Act. I am happy to state that Cabinet about three weeks ago, granted approval to my request for the policy and the Bill for the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act to incorporate plea bargaining to be laid before Parliament.
“Pursuant to the directives of Cabinet, I am consulting the Hon. Minister for the Interior on the exceptions to plea bargaining. I propose that treason, violent offences like rape, genocide, robbery, kidnapping, murder, attempted murder, abduction, defilement, piracy and offences related to public elections be excluded from plea bargaining. Apart from these offences, plea bargaining will be available in all other cases. I consider the introduction of plea bargaining the most significant innovation in the process of reform of the criminal justice system in Ghana which has the ultimate object of easing congestion in our prisons,” he said.
Godfred Dame also explained the state also hopes, through this first legislation, to safeguard against such things as abuse, using plea bargaining as a conduit.
“It is worthy to state that in order to safeguard against abuses, plea bargaining will be done only with the consent of the Attorney-General in line with his constitutional mandate under article 88 and will be done under strict conditions set out in the proposed bill,” he said.
The second legislation, he said, will be a review of a draft Community Sentencing Bill, which seeks to provide options for sentencing other than prison terms for various offences considered not to be too serious
“The second innovation to ease congestion in our prisons is the passage of an Alternative Sentencing Act. I consider the passage of an Alternative Sentencing Act an urgent necessity. In this regard, I recently reviewed a draft Community Sentencing Bill that I charged the Director of Legislative Drafting in my Office to come up with.
“The draft Bill seeks to provide options for sentencing other than prison term for various offences considered not to be too serious. It is going through the process of stakeholder consultations and will soon be laid before Parliament upon conclusion of same. I am treating it both pieces of legislation as part of my priority legislations this year,” he said.
The purpose of the visit was for the Attorney General and his team to familiarise themselves with the conditions of detention in the country, so as to inform policy measures to ease congestion and generally improve conditions of detention.
