Samson’s Take: Stop criminalising poverty

It is the law in Ghana that vagrancy is a crime. Yes, the kind where the person is jobless, begs in the name of selling handkerchiefs in town; the person is also homeless sleeps rough just anywhere in town. Yes, that makes a criminal who must be flogged by guards or police taking instructions from a mayor.

Poverty is criminalised so the city or town can be kept clean – that’s the only solution dictated by lazy binary, not human-centred thinking. This solution has been applied for decades without results. The poor hawker who prefers this life for survival must be arrested and thrown into jail because she can’t afford the least court fine.

The Republic prefers to spend less than ¢2 a day to feed her in a congested prison, not fit for human dwelling, with the least opportunity to get the skill to be self-reliant upon her release. In fact, some are in jail for getting drunk and quarrelsome. Yes, that is an offence attracting up to three years in jail. Some are crammed in there for the offence of making a loud noise, singing a profane, indecent, obscene or abusive song, displaying insulting inscription or object to annoy or irritate someone or using abusive words, but were unable to afford the up to ¢120 fine.

These laws are subject to abuse because they give unfettered discretion to police, who are often quick to arrest upon a complaint before investigating, and the accused may suffer in remand even if they could afford the fine at trial. I know a judge who handed an accused the least fine and ended up paying it herself because the offence was not worth the custodial sentence compelled by law.

Newsfile has had to pay for the liberty of a young man who stole plantain so his wife and baby could feed. We got him tools for a barbering salon to be able to cater for his young family in dignity. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has been paying some of these fines to secure the freedom of the poor.

This week, I moderated a national conference on decriminalising petty offences organised with CHRAJ and OSIWA. The first and current CHRAJ commissioners, Deputy Attorney-General Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, MPs and all who spoke urged swift decriminalisation of petty offences and passage of the bill seeking to introduce a non-custodial sentencing regime in Ghana.

Stop criminalising poverty! We have obligations to implement agreements we have signed to this effect, including the AU Charter requirements to promote equality before the law, dignifying treatment and action plan for accelerated prison reforms. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ convention against degrading treatment or punishment and Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals for inclusive societies and access to justice for all.

There is also the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights 2017 commitment against arbitrary arrest and detention and to avoid recourse to law or by-laws criminalising life-sustaining activities by the poor and vulnerable people in society. In my next Take, I invite those who love this democracy to rise to protect the judiciary against years of sustained vile propaganda by politicians to destroy that institution critical to sustaining this country.

The NDC has just petitioned the Commonwealth Secretariat against what it claims are state-sponsored persecutions of its members. It cannot be a good system only when it goes in your favour. Sometimes a judge just cannot do anything about your case simply because he or she dislikes you.

Let the people you insist have good defences to their cases pending in court fight with the evidence. Isolate errant judges and use due process to exact discipline rather than the spirited wholesale bastardisation in undermining this democratic enterprise by unjustly seeking to intimidate even good judges and destroy the only thing it thrives on for our collective good – integrity, trust and confidence.

March 5, 2022 - Samson Lardy ANYENINI