Criminal Code to be reviewed - Minister

Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has told Parliament that the Criminal Procedure Code of 1960, Act 30 would be comprehensively reviewed to make provision for the sentencing of pregnant women to be in harmony with the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

The Charter contained specific provisions with respect to pregnant women and mothers of infants and young children, who came into conflict with the law.

Nana Akufo-Addo said those women should not be given custodial sentences and that alternatives to institutional confinement should be found to ensure that a mother was not imprisoned with her child.

He was answering a question Mr. Kwakye Addo NDC MP for Afram Plains South, posed to him as to what steps he was taking to institute a non-custodial sentence system in the country for the benefit of the aged and pregnant women?

"During the tail end of the last Parliament, my predecessor as Attorney General laid before this House a bill for the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1960 (Act 30), in order to make provision inter alia for the sentencing of pregnant women to harmonise our laws with the teachings of the African Charter. Unfortunately, the pressure of work at the end of the last Parliament made it impossible to deal with the proposed bill, which, therefore, lapsed," the A-G said.

It was his intention to bring back the bill during the next meeting of Parliament and to see how the proposed amendment should also embrace proposals on sentencing of the aged.

He said, "there are no statutory provisions on sentencing of the aged and in practice, however, there are common law rules on sentencing that the sentencing judge will normally take into consideration, one of which is the age of the particular convict.

"Quite often, the fact of old age induces the court to impose a non-custodial sentence." He said, "common law also takes into account the pregnant state of a woman when sentence is being applied to a pregnant woman and quite often, the fact of pregnancy induces the court to impose a non-custodial sentence".

Nana Akufo-Addo said, "Section 312 of Act 30 is inadequate in this area, as it provides only for women facing capital punishment.

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Prisons Report contains findings of pregnant and nursing mothers in prison. The amendment seeks to harmonise Act 30 with the African Charter and thereby remedy this defect.

The section enjoined that where a woman was sentenced for an offence punishable by death and she was found to be pregnant at the time of being sentenced, she shall not be sentenced to death, but to life imprisonment.

The Attorney - General expressed regret that there was no other statutory provision on the sentencing of pregnant women.