The Inspector General of Police, (IGP) David Asante Apeatu has been dragged before an Accra Human Rights Court over his failure to comply with Section 16 of the Criminal Procedure and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 30).
The Applicant, Solomon Osei Fosu wants the court to issue an order compelling the IGP and his personnel to live within the stated law.
The Ghana Police Service has for the past 57 years since its creation in 1960 not complied with the law.
Per the law, “officers in charge of the police station, shall report monthly to the District Magistrate the cases of all persons arrested without warrant within the limits of their respective stations and not subsequently charged with in an offence, whether those persons have been admitted to bail or not.”
Mr. Fosu who is also the Executive Secretary of Center for Constitutional Order, a Legal Think-Tank insists findings from a 2016 research indicates that the police have never complied with the law since it was created.
He believes the compliance of the law by the police is a “statutory duty imposed on them by Section 16 of Act 30.”
IGP Sued
However, lawyers for the applicant in an Ex-Parte application filed at the court stated that the Center shared its findings with the IGP, requesting the state institution to carry out its statutory duty.
It disclosed that the Center also shared its findings with the Chief Justice with the aim of the Judiciary ensuring compliance by demanding same from Ghana Police Service adding that “the office of the Chief Justice by a letter dated January 6, 2017 responded to the Center’s Letter.”
According to the lawyers, the office of the Chief Justice on January 6, 2017, wrote to the office of the IGP informing him to take action on the law.
The affidavit in support of the motion stated “In spite the demands made on the IGP by the Applicant and the high office of the Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, the Ghana Police Service headed by the Inspector General of Police has failed, refused and or neglected to comply with Section 16 of Act 30.”
Mr. Fosu said the Center is interested in knowing that the constitutional order that all arrests effected in the country comes under the sole supervision of the Courts is adhered to without impunity and or any sign of disrespect on the side of the Ghana Police Service or any other institution of State, as the case may be.
Arrests
The Executive Secretary of the Constitutional Think- Thank contended that over the period of the research, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom was arrested without a warrant by COP Prosper Ablorh, the then Director of CID, Ghana Police Service on October 10, 2016 at the Police Headquarters Accra.
Again, Mr. De Roy Kwesi Andrew of H/No. 6 Slater Road Obojo, Madina, in Accra was also arrested without a warrant at the Police Headquarters Accra with Investigator Prince Dwamina on July 4, 2015.
Mr. Fosu noted that he was also arrested by the Ashaiman District Command of on August 19, 2016 stressing “This has not been reported to the District Magistrate Court as required by law.”
He further stated that on September 4, 2017, Mr. Tahiru Fuseni, an LLB Graduate, Mountcrest University College, Accra, was arrested without warrant by the Ministries Police Force and was kept in cells for three hours, released on bail to reappear daily.
According to the lawyers, the benefit of the compliance is to confer the benefit of the constitutionally guaranteed right of personal liberty; to ensure that crooks do not negotiate away their crime whilst the innocent suffer arbitrary arrests and for the State to secure the benefit of data on persons arrested monthly to aid her in appropriate policy functioning for national security inter alia.
