Police Personnel schooled on human rights

Accra, July 16, GNA - Police prosecutors on Monday converged in Accra, to sharpen their skills on how to respect the rights of criminals within the framework of the justice administration.

The workshop, attended by 100 participants is the second in a series of a three-week training programme. Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mrs. Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, who addressed the workshop, said although the duty of the Police did not include the prosecution of criminal offenders, the Service absolved the role because the Attorney Generals Department was understaffed and not widely spread to undertake the responsibility. She said there was therefore the need for such courses to equip the police personnel with the requisite skills to perform the task creditably.

Mrs. Mills-Robertson appealed to the Attorney Generals Department to revive training programmes started for prosecutors at the Ghana School of Law to ensure that the personnel performed the responsibility with professionalism.

"It is therefore expected that you as prosecutors and lawyers will function so well that the rule of law and justice would be the ultimate victor with our criminal justice system," she added. Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, in a speech read on her behalf, said the mode of arrest and treatment of both complainants and suspects had been of concern to the public, as some arrests involved the total restrain of the liberty of the person.

She called for the adoption of new ways of crime management that would take into account the interest of both society and the offender. The Chief Justice regretted that the mode of sentencing had resulted in congestion in prisons there was the need to resort to the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms to speed up trials. Professor E.H. Ofori Amankwaah, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) said the police must be mindful of the civil rights of persons and should not be blinded by their mandate of preventing crime.

He said when the Police became over zealous, their outfit as a security agency would then become a threat to the democratic dispensation of the country, adding "integrity and effectiveness should be on one hand and respect for human rights on the other".