Criminal Law Blog Ghana

In this brief write-up, I have provided a simple approach to familiarising yourself with criminal law practice. The approach is meant for law students and new practitioners who may not have any experience in criminal prosecution or defence. For more details on specific topics, you can follow this blog on Instagram @criminal_law_blog_gh. I hope you find it useful. Criminal law practice is a specialised area that requires an appreciation and understanding of the criminal justice system. For law students, the law school usually provides course outlines or manuals with a detailed guide on specific areas that the course will cover and the relevant sources of law. To appreciate this practice area, a lawyer or aspiring lawyer must be familiar with the following:  A: Key players or stakeholders in the criminal justice system, their powers and roles (police, courts, attorney-general etc.); you should know the following: -         their mandate or source of...

  Introduction From the genesis of the modern state, the prosecution of an accused person has been the preserve of the State and not the victim or complainant. This is because crime is considered a wrong or injury against the State as a whole. [1]  Thus, complainants have over the centuries played no other role than making a report and testifying in court. Is this the case even when a complainant is aggrieved by the conduct or outcome of a criminal case?   The legal position of a complainant in Ghana A complainant in a criminal case is the one who reports a crime and is usually the victim or any other person who may have been affected by the crime. A complainant may be a natural person or a corporate entity or institution.  In Ghana, as is common to most jurisdictions, the power to initiate and conduct criminal proceedings is vested in the Attorney-General and all offences prosecuted in the name of the Republic of Ghana is at the suit of the Attorney-General or perso...

Repeat applications are recognized and permitted in criminal procedure and are more common with bail applications. What is a repeat application and when can one file same? Adjei, JA eloquently set out the basis for repeat applications in t he Court of Appeal case of Paul Larbie & 3 Others v The Republic [2020] Crim.LR 532 ( click here for full case ). What it is: A repeat application is an application filed in an appellate court after the same application has been refused by a court below unless a statute provides otherwise. Thus, an applicant whose application has been refused by a lower court can either repeat the application at the court above or appeal against the ruling refusing his application. For instance, a bail application filed at a trial Circuit Court, when refused, can be repeated at the High Court. (See rule 20(2) of C.I. 16 and rules 9(8) and 28 of C.I. 19 for examples of repeat applications at the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal). When to file a repeat application...

Every criminal law practitioner, whether prosecuting or defending, may have heard this statement: “Appeals are filed at the registry of the court below”. This may be true for criminal appeals to the Court of Appeal [1] and the Supreme Court. [2] But is this the case for substantive criminal appeals from the Circuit and District Courts to the High Court?  Sometime in May 2022, I was served with an application for bail pending appeal to be determined by the High Court. The application was premised on a Petition of Appeal  (often indicated as a Notice of Appeal) against a sentence imposed by the Circuit Court. The Petition of Appeal was filed at the Circuit Court Registry instead of the High Court Registry and this was brought to the court’s attention. Arguments were taken to determine the validity of the Petition of Appeal having regard to the procedural requirements for filing such petitions. This was necessary because the Supreme Court has held that the rules of court for...

There have been several bail applications I have dealt with where averments in the supporting affidavit have been centered on the ill health of the accused person or convict. Some have gone further to attach medical reports proving the alleged condition. These applications are mostly granted although the reasons given in the rulings are not emphatic that the basis of the grant of bail is the ill health of the applicant.  It is therefore necessary that we answer the question posed in the title: is ill health a ground for the grant of bail. This article  will also look at the circumstances under which ill health will be considered. Let me state from the onset, that detention is not an avenue for the rights of a detainee to be trampled on, especially their rights to life and healthcare. Hence, medical care is offered to persons in police and prison custody at the expense of the state.  Before 2004, the general rule was that ill health was not a ground for the grant of b...