Her Ladyship Justice Angelina Mensah Homiah addressing the media
BUT FOR the intervention of the Justice for All Programme held in Sunyani Medium Prison, an inmate who had been remanded without trial for nine years would have been forgotten.
Justices who sat on his case referred to him as locked and forgotten because the investigator handling his case is dead while there are no traces of his docket at the court nor at the Attorney General’s Department where search information said his docket was referred to.
The justices had no other choice but to unconditionally discharge him because according to them all the above factors were inure to his benefit.
Her ladyship, Justice Angelina Mensah Homiah, the national chairperson for the steering committee for the Justice for All Programme and also a Justice of the Court of Appeal in Ashanti Region expressed satisfaction that the programme was successful.
She gave the number of remand cases dealt with by the court as 16.
Out of the 16 cases, one was unconditionally discharged, one was convicted and sentenced, and nine were granted bail. Three applications were struck out and two were referred to a psychiatry examination.
She explained further that those referred to psychiatry examination were incoherent and because the justices don’t want to release inmates who are mentally unstable to society it became necessary to refer them. ‘
‘If the results find out that they are stable they will go back to the court for the trial judge to decide’, she assured.
She expressed gratitude to all partners, especially the POS Foundation who are working to fast-track criminal trials in the country. She also thanked the justices who sat on the case including Justice Francis Koffie and Senior State Attorney, Michael Baafi.
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani