Eighty-two remand prisoners at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison whose cases have not been heard since their incarceration have been released under the Justice for All Programme.
Their release followed the issuance of a motion at the High Court in October 2010 by the Centre for Human Rights and Civil Liberties (CHURCIL), a human rights non-governmental organisation seeking the release of 160 remand prisoners.
Out of the number, 14 were granted bail while the cases of the rest were adjourned indefinitely.
The programme granting the release of the prisoners who had been under incarceration from various points within the 1993-2005 period forms
part of measures instituted by the Judicial Service to decongest the country's over-crowded prisons.
A legal and project assistant at CHURCIL, Mr Mohammed Ahmed, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the motion was filed to secure the release of those with expired warrants and persons whose dockets could not be traced.
The release of the remand prisoners, a gesture which was based purely on humanitarian grounds, Mr Ahmed noted, was in compliance with Article 14, Section 4 of the 1992 Constitution, which states in part, "Where a person arrested, restricted or detained under paragraph A or B of this article is not tried within a reasonable time, then without prejudice to any further proceedings that may be brought against him, [he] should be released unconditionally or upon reasonable conditions, including in particular conditions reasonably necessary to ensure that he appears at a later date for trial or proceedings preliminary to trial".
On that score, CHURCIL was of the belief that detaining the prisoners without trying their cases was in clear contravention of their fundamental human right and expressed its resolve to fight in the interest of remanded prisoners who were 'unjustifiably' incarcerated.
To ensure that those released did not revert to their bad ways, Mr Ahmed said before their release they were each made to sign a bond of good behaviour for a year and as such they would be strictly monitored by the authorities concerned and underscored CHURCIL's preparedness to offer them the needed advice to help reintegrate them into society.
He said records indicated that majority of the remand prisoners were innocent and that further checks showed that they had been arrested in a swoop and ‘dumped’ at the prisons without recourse to their human rights.
He said other prisoners were in there ostensibly to help the police in their investigation but had since been abandoned in the various prisons.
He said CHURCIL had drafted142 motions in respect of the prisoners and expressed the hope that in collaboration with the Justice for All Programme, more inmates would be released by the close of this year.
Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana
