Story By Seth Eyiah.
Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice has expressed total support for Decriminalising Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy Project being spearheaded by Crime Check Foundation, CCF, and Open Society Initiative for West Africa, OSIWA.
This is because the Attorney General and Minister of Justice has begun reviewing three legislations including the Non-Custodial Sentencing Bill aimed at decriminalising minor offences and decongesting the country’s prisons and police cells.
The Chairman of the Commission, Joseph Whittal, said this when the Executive Director of CCF, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, paid a courtesy call on him at his office as part of consultations with the justice sector institutions, to sensitise them on the need to repeal
vagrancy laws that always criminalise poor people.
Mr. Whittal said, “vagrancy is to say the least is not an offence. Petty offences are not really offences. But it is society making those people who are they are. So let us see how we can build a better and more protective social protection system rather using legal reengineering as the basis to keep people who are poor from being who they are.”
He said the Decriminalising Vagrancy Laws Advocacy Project is spot on and the Commission is ready to co-operate or collaborate in any form and manner with Crime Check Foundation to work together.
“I want to assure you and your colleagues here that we are ready to collaborate with you and that you are embarking on a worthy course and it is something that we must all encourage you and it should not be a nine-day wonder. We should be able to get our justice sector institutions to sit up.”
The Commissioner of CHRAJ called for a second look at the rationale behind certain legislation on the country’s statute books, saying “in the absence of a social protection system that should take care of vagrants should they end up in jail? If we have failed in putting in place a social protection system you don’t turn to the victims and now say it is your fault we are putting you in jail”.
Mr. Whittal, therefore, said it is important to maintain sustained pressure to ensure that vagrancy laws are properly removed from the statute books.
He said the issue is not just in Ghana but an African wide situation and Ghana should be part of the African movement to sanitise the social system that is unintentionally present but intentionally in the past were targeted at the poor in society. And added that these
laws must be replaced with different types of prohibition of conduct without necessarily arraigning people in court and putting them in prison.
The Chairman of CHRAJ recounted a number of projects the commission and OSIWA have worked together on both in Ghana and abroad and welcomed the advocacy project on decriminalising vagrancy laws.
The Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, said 12 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies have been sensitised on their bye-laws and the harm they are inflicting on the poor.
He said the advocacy project is not to encourage people especially the poor to disregard the laws but to educate them to know their rights and for the assemblies to also know their responsibilities.