Audio By Carbonatix
Law watcher, Mr. Opoku Agyemang has called for the review of sections of the Narcotics Law that refuses suspects of narcotics offences bail.
According to him, the current situation where drug suspects are refused bail is not the best because innocent people may be held in custody even without sufficient evidence.
Opoku Agyemang made the suggestion following a clash between a judge at the Osu Magistrates Court and officials of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) over the granting of bail of some alleged drugs suspects.
While the suspects had been granted bail by the court and the judge was upholding the decision, the BNI claimed it was re-arresting them because they were involved in another case which they would not disclose.
A back-and-forth argument ensued among the judge, the suspects’ counsel and the BNI, drawing a police team from the Greater Accra Regional Police command to the scene.
The police were eventually given custody of the suspects.
Speaking to Frimpong Manso Adakabre on Adom FM's Dwaso Nsem on Friday, lawyer Opoku Agyemang, who is also a lecturer at the University of Ghana Law School, said a High court had set a precedent in granting some narcotics suspects bail and lower courts could only take a cue.
He argued that even though it is the norm that suspects in drug related offences should not be granted bail, it is the duty of the prosecution to produce enough evidence to convince the judge that the suspects are indeed guilty and should be denied bail.
He said the onus lies on the prosecution to assemble their facts together to keep the suspects in jail because “if the prosecution has no evidence or whatsoever to establish that this is narcotics, konkonte can be a powder in Ghana yet it can be a narcotics to somebody in another country.”
“The judge is not a robot; if you look at the Evidence Act, the law clearly states that the evidence act should be applied fairly to ensure justice; though the judge knows the offence is not one in which bail can be granted, the question is where is the evidence?" he queried.
Lawyer Opoku Agyemang argued that facts must be established before one can think about bail or no bail, saying “bail is a secondary issue, first you have to establish that a narcotics offence has been committed - that must be proven, if you can’t prove that one, how do you proceed to talk about bailing?”
He said it was time for people to stop being emotional about court judgments, adding that judges are now concentrating more on the liberty of the people under the rule of law.
Story: Akuamoah Boateng/Adom News/Ghana
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