Eleven remand prisoners at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons have been released following a free legal representation offered them as part of the government’s 'Justice for All Programme' aimed at decongesting the country's prisons. The Centre for Human Rights and Civil Liberties (CHURCIL), a non-profit legal and educational organisation, offered the remand inmates free legal counsel as part of their humanitarian mandate. The Executive Director of CHURCIL, Mr Kojo Graham, told the Daily Graphic that his institution, which was formed early last year, had committed itself to offer services on humanitarian grounds with particular focus on remand prisoners whose cases had not been heard since their incarceration. He said that checks conducted at the prisons indicated that some inmates had been on remand over a period ranging from five to 15 years without their cases being heard, adding that others were placed in places he described as "forgotten zones". He said a team of paralegal assistants in his outfit had so far conducted an interview on 323 prisoners at the Nsawam prisons in order to identify those on remand with a view to intervening to seek the release of those whose cases did not merit incarceration. Mr Graham pointed out that out of the about 14,000 prison population in the country, remand prisoners constituted a third of the number. He attributed the rising number of such prisoners to lost dockets, reluctance of police personnel to pursue the cases of those on remand and the transfer of CID persons handling cases of remand prisoners, since there appeared to be no formal way of handing over cases. “Most of the remand prisoners have expired warrants, meaning that there is no justification to continue holding them there because their continued stay in the prisons amounts to an abuse of their human rights,” he stated. To that end, Mr Graham said CHURCIL was engaged in advocacy with other legal stakehokders, including the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), to seek other means of incarceration other than imprisonment. Source: Daily Graphic