Chiefs calls for pro-active security

Accra, July 21, GNA - Nana Ahemadu Okufuo, Nifahene of Denkyira Traditional Area on Saturday called for pro-active security instead of over focusing on re-active security by the security agencies. "In the wake of recent killings, increase in armed robbery and banditry operations in the country, the security agencies and individual must adopt measures aimed at preventing implementation of criminal activities, Nana Okufuo told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.

He explained that re-active security approaches focus on those procedures used to discover that some of their systems have been compromised by an intruder, criminal or attack programmed attacked. Nana Okufuo who is also the Chief of Buabenso, Denkyira in the Central region said modern security organization had realizes the value of dedicating some resources to the prevention of expensive damages that were likely to occur if such preventive measures are not taken. He therefore called on the Government, communities and cooperate bodies invest in Intrusion Detection and Response Systems to serve as mechanism for the prevention and detection of break-ins and other infractions.

He suggested companies, institutions, individuals and national security should install security cameras at vantage locations to record activities, deter theft and help identify perpetrators who commit crime.

Nana Okufuo also suggested the banning of two people seating on a motor bike (Rider and passenger) to curb recent bag and mobile phone snatching. He said the police must enforce the law on registration of motor bikes, and wearing of clash helmet, confiscate all motor bikes without registration numbers.

Meanwhile Professor Ken Agyeman Attafuah, Executive Director, Justice and Human Rights Institute has expressed concern about the resort to instance justice, stressing it's a signal of loss of public confidence in our capacity to be decent in punishing wrong-doing decisively, and in accordance with the rule of law. He noted: "Mob justice is a serious social issue for contemporary Ghanaian society.it depicts Ghanaian society to the rest of the world as both primitive and barbaric; and announces our criminal justice system - the police, courts and prisons - as fragile, incompetent and rotten." Prof Attafuah former Executive Secretary of the National Reconciliation Commission said instant justice impinges on national security and engenders the lives of the citizenry. Its administration is not founded on facts proven through the regular judicial process. Virtually anyone can easily be "mistaken" for a criminal and summarily punished.

Speaking at the Fourth Ghana Parliamentary Capacity-Building Workshop, organised by African Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR) in collaboration with the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Interior and the British High Commission, Prof Attafuah said resort to instant justice has a long and ancient pedigree in Ghanaian society. The phenomenon spans several decades, but reached a crescendo during the period of Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) rule when bands of soldiers and civilians, sometimes unauthorized and amorphous, took the law into their own hands and dispensed with impunity a new brand of justice - popular justice - to "criminals". Prof Attafuah described as a leading Criminologist and Legal Practitioner said the resort to mob justice has worsened since January 7, 1993 when we commenced the long transition from military to civilian liberal democratic rule, under which the rhetoric and reality of observing human rights have increased considerably.

"In the last five years of the transitional phase, the phenomenon of instant mob justice, as reported by the media, is on the ascendancy. "Indeed, transitions to liberal democracy and the consolidation of a regime of respect for fundamental human rights are often characterized by uncertainties over mores and norms, and an expansion in the social and political space for the contestation and even the rejection of liberal and rights-based values by segments of society, who may choose alternative modes of ensuring social order," he said. Explaining the concept of instant justice, Prof Attafuah said it was synonymous with extra-judicial punishment -immediate infliction of bodily and mental pain, suffering or death on a person arrested or otherwise physically overpowered as punishment for his alleged wrong as soon as he is so subdued.

It is called "instant justice" because it is inflicted instantaneously at the time of being overcome, without submission to the due process of law, the official imposition of punishment in accordance with pre-existing law, without a right of appeal, or indeed any of the formal protocols that ensure fair trial and justice. Prof Attafuah said "instant justice" is a misnomer as what happens, fundamentally, is the imposition of instant injustice, no matter how lenient or grave the punishment.

Instant justice is frequently resorted to by persons seeking, for a variety of reasons, to circumvent or short-circuit the regular and established criminal justice system. On Solutions to Instant (Mob) Justice, Prof Attafuah called for deter predatory violence of all kinds via stern and strategic deployment of law enforcement capacities. Building of public confidence in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) by combating police and judicial corruption in an active and transparent manner, invigorate the capacity of the CJS to deliver justice efficiently and fairly, he noted. 21 July 07