Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has described as groundbreaking, a Supreme Court ruling that allows courts to operate on weekends and holidays when dealing with cases that affect personal liberty.

Mr Kpebu in September 2016, dragged the Attorney-General to the Apex court demanding a declaration that portions of the Holidays Act that bar the courts from dealing with cases that affect personal liberty are unconstitutional. 

He argued that, some police personnel in Ghana deliberately take advantage of the law to arrest suspects a day or two before the weekend or public holiday so they can keep them for days before granting bail or producing the suspects before court.

Delivering judgment on the case today, Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo said the 48hours as stated in the constitution should mean 48hours, irrespective of weekends or holidays.

An overwhelmed Kpebu, who spoke to JoyNews in an interview after the judgment, lauded the Supreme Court for the decision.

According to him, the ruling on detention cases will take justice delivery system in the country a notch higher.

“Indeed I am at a loss for words, the CJ [Chief Justice] has done marvelously well. With this decision, she has expanded the frontiers of liberty, personal liberty. One of the main reasons that pushed me to bring this case to court was the practice where sometimes powerful persons in society will cause the arrest of a suspect on a Friday afternoon knowing very well that Saturday and Sunday there will be no court sitting so that invariably, by the time the court sits on Monday, the 48hours that have been stated in the constitution would have elapsed,” he said.

He further added that “you know with our constitution when a person is arrested on suspicion of a crime, even if the investigations are not done the constitution requires that within 48hours that person must be brought before a judge depending on their offense to determine if his continuous incarceration is necessary or be granted bail.  So this is what the CJ and the Supreme Court have abolished. This is good, as I said, I am lost for words. This is good”.

Present on the panel with the Chief Justice was Justices Julius Ansah, Anin-Yeboah (Chief Justice Designate), Baffoe Bonnie, Sule Gbadegbe, A. A Benin, and Prof. Ashie Kotey.