Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo
The Attorney General’s Department of the Ministry of Justice, has organised a two-day training workshop for police prosecutors and investigators in the Eastern region.
The training was on the new criminal law and procedure for thorough investigations into cases presented to the courts for trial.
The participants numbering over 200 were drawn from the various districts in the region and were trained on preparation of facts and charge sheets, ingredients of offences, preparation of witness statement for court and documents for disclosure and preservation of evidence and exhibits among others.
Mrs Emily Addo-Okyireh, Chief State Attorney of the A-Gs department in the Eastern Region said the training was necessary in view of the new paradigm shift in the criminal jurisprudence following the judgment of the Supreme Court (SC) in the case of the republic vrs Eugene Baffour Bonnie and four others.
In that judgement, she noted that the SC stated that prosecution must disclose all evidence in their domain to the defence, before prosecution begins and therefore the police prosecutors and investigators had to be sensitised to equip them in that direction.
She said the role of police investigators and prosecutors was critical in ensuring that trials were conducted fairly, justly and efficiently and establishing the act and intentions which were the ingredients of offences in preparing relevant charge sheets was imperative in achieving the best in the criminal justice system.
State Attorney, Nana Gyankoma Gyaba-Mensah, who took participants through Preservation of Evidence and Exhibits and Tendering of Documents in Court, noted that often prosecutors and investigators overlooked some vital points in evidence and exhibits.
She said the court was not a try and error ground and therefore exhibits and evidences in cases that were presented for prosecution must be handled well to ensure that no gaps were left in the process.
