Kwesi Botchway Jnr is a member of the NPP Communications Team
A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communications Team, Kwesi Botchway Jnr, has raised concerns about what he describes as a growing erosion of the presumption of innocence in the country's criminal justice system.
Speaking on the AM Show on JoyNews monitored by GhanaWeb on May 6, 2026, he noted that individuals accused of crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.
According to him, while this principle is a cornerstone of the law, recent development suggests otherwise.
“The law safeguards the rights of such accused persons or such suspects. The law requires that these persons are subject to fair trial, are proven innocent, are innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction,” he said.
Kwesi Botchway Jnr further argued that the current state of Ghana’s criminal justice system reflects a departure from this standard.
He alleged that in practice, the “rule of law has become rule of discretion,” adding that the presumption of innocence is increasingly being reversed in public perception.
Kwesi Botchway Jnr specifically criticised the conduct of the Attorney General, Dr Dominic Akurutinga Ayine, alleging that the office sometimes makes public pronouncements on suspects before formal charges are filed in court.
He argued that such actions risk shaping public opinion prematurely and undermines the fairness of the judicial process.
“You have an Attorney General who, before filing charges in a court of law, comes to the media gallery, comes to the public to pronounce guilt on the part of suspects… even before filing charges,” he remarked.
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He further described what he called a “modus operandi” of pre-shaping public perception, claiming that suspects are sometimes labelled in ways that influence how citizens perceive ongoing legal cases.
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