The Royal African Society

Ghana's Public Tribunals: An Experiment in Revolutionary Justice

Author(s): Roger Gocking
Source: African Affairs, Vol. 95, No. 379 (Apr., 1996), pp. 197-223
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/723701
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 African Agairs (1996), 95, 197-223

GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS: AN

EXPERIMENT IN REVOLUTIONARY JUSTICE

ROGER GOCKING

IN A RADIO BROADCAST to the nation on Tuesday, 5 January 19 8 2, the

Chairman of Ghana's Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC),
Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, announced that his revolutionary
government was about to establish what he described as 'People's
Tribunals'. They were to 'act on the basis of investigations scrupulously
conducted and [with] evidence properly assembled', but were 'not [to be]
fettered by technical rules that in the past have perverted the course
of justice and enabled criminals to go free'. Nevertheless, this new
system was not to 'replace [the] regular courts', but neither were the
latter to 'superintend [their] operations'. Instead, what the Chairman
envisaged was a dualistic criminal court system that would 'respect the
boundaries of one another', and it would be left 'for the people to
decide the correctness or otherwise of the judgment of the two
systems'.l The Public Tribunals were to be a powerful instrument for
pursuing the 'revolutionary' goals of what the Chairman described was a
'Holy War'.2
Almost eleven years later, on the 7 July 1993, as part of the new
constitutional arrangements of Ghana's Fourth Republic, this dualistic
criminal court system came to an end.3 According to the Courts Act of
6 July 1993, all courts in Ghana were to be incorporated into one system
under the control of the country's Supreme Court and the experiment with
popular justice 'not fettered by technical rules' came to an end. By the
middle of 1995, with little fanfare, Regional, Circuit and Community
Tribunals were indeed made part of the Fourth Republic's judicial
system.4 Much of their personnel came from the ranks of former Public
Tribunal officials, and as a further important concession to 'popular justice'
many of these panel members were community members without specific

Roger Gocking teaches at Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, NY. He wishes to thank the Faculty
Development Committee at Mercy College for providing financial assistance for the travel
expenses incurred in doing the research for this article. In particular he would like to thank
the Ghanaian members of the audience that attended the Popular/Urban Cultures in Ghana
panel at the African Studies Association's annual conference in Orlando, November 1995, for
their comments on the abbreviated version of this article that was presented. Many lived in
Ghana during the period of the Public Tribunals.
1. Daily Graphic, 7 January 1982.
2. Daily Graphic, 1 1 January 1982.
3. Initially the date was 7 January 1993 when the constitution came into force, but the
difficulty of completing prosecutions in progress in the Public Tribunals by this time made a
six month prolongation of their independent lives necessary.
4. Ghanaian Times, 2 May 1995.

197

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 198 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

legal training. As such the former Public Tribunals, once independent

and feared institutions of revolutionary justice, have only a modest judi
role in the new order.
In retrospect we can see Ghana's experiment in revolutionary justice
part of a continent wide trend to restructure legal systems inherited fr
the colonial past. Beginning in the 1 970s, Nigeria turned to speci
courts, initially military tribunals, that were constituted to try specif
criminal acts that by the 1 980s ranged from armed robbery to t
investigation of persons involved in civil disturbances.5 Zimbabwe, whe
it became independent in 1981, introduced the Customary Law a
Primary Courts Act that sought 'to transfer authoricy in land legislation an
judicial matters from traditional to elected leadership'.6 The law's pur
pose was also to 'popularize' justice and it created Village and Communit
Courts that were integrated into the country's judicial system. Mo
sweeping of all was Mozambique's dismantling of the legal apparatus of t
Portuguese colonial state and its replacement, beginning in 1978, with
new one designed to serve the interests of the mass of the people
People's tribunals that ranged all the way from village tribunals to th
Supreme People's Tribunal became the judicial institutions of this new
'socialist legality'.
In contrast, however, to these restructurings Ghana's experiment in
revolutionary justice was significantly different. Most importantly it
created a parallel system of criminal adjudication that provided an oppor-
tunity to compare a new system of popular justice with that inherited from
the colonial past and designed to conform to African needs. Nevertheless,
in a similar fashion to the colonial government's attempt to maintain a
dualistic legal system what is now variously referred to as the 'Ordinary',
'Regular', or 'Traditional Courts' absorbed their competitor. In this
article I would like to describe how this happened. I will do so by looking
at the influence of internal as well as external critics in affecting the
development of these courts, and the impact of social conditions on
changing their adjudicative role. Together these factors contributed to
their reabsorption into a single court system.
In spite of being part of such an important contemporary legal
development, during the eleven years that the Public Tribunals
existed there has been relatively little scholarly attention paid to this

5. M. Adekunle Owoade, 'The Military in the criminal law in Nigeria', 3rournal of African
Lazv, 2, 33 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 135-148. It was under the provisions of the Civil
Disturbances (Special Tribunal) (Amendment) Decree No. 13 of 1987 that the Special
Tribunal was constituted that recently tried and convicted (31 October 1995) Ken Saro-Wiwa
and eight others for the murder of four Ogoni chiefs.
6. Andrew Ladley, 'Changing the courts in Zimbabwe: The customary law and primary
courts act', 3tournal of African Law, 2, 26 (Autumn, 1982), p. 101.
7. Albie Sachs and Gita Honwana Welch, Liberating the Lazv: Creating popular justice in
Mozambique (London, 1990), p. 1.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 199

experiment in revolutionary justice. Most of what there has been

has come from Ghanaian scholars who have recognized far more
than others that the 'public tribunals system [was] probably the single
most important and innovative legal enactment in the history of crimi-
nal law reform in commonwealth Africa'.8 Most, however, have
treated the Public Tribunals as a small part of PNDC rule.9 Those
who have focused more exclusively on the Public Tribunals have
tended to do so in a synchronic fashion with limited attention paid
to the metamorphosis of these institutions over time.l? The most
extensive treatment of the Public Tribunals, Kenneth Attsfuah's
thesis, describes the background out of which these institutions
emerged, the role of leftist organizations in their creation, their struc-
ture and composition, as well as the many local and international
criticisms of how the tribunals functioned. Finally, since he takes
'essentially a neo-Marxian structuralist approach', he 'pays attention to
development issues' that played a crucial role in diminishing the
PNDC's interest in revolutionary politics in general and the Public
Tribunals in particular. l l
Getting important Public Tribunal personnel to agree to interviews
has contributed to the difficulties of providing a more diachronic treat-
ment of these controversial institutions. For example, Attafuah was
able to interview only Peter Ala Adjetey, past-President and a current
Executive Member of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA). All other
prospective interviewees requested anonymity or placed major restraints
on what he could ask.l2 Undoubtedly this was the safest way to
treat these institutions particularly for those who were resident in
Ghana. The Public Tribunals could easily turn their wrath against

8. Kenneth A. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy, public tribunals and the administration of
justice in Rawlings' Ghana (1982-1992): A study in the political economy', unpub. PhD
thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1993, p. 17.
9. For example, Maxwell Owusu, 'Custom and coups: A judicial interpretation of civil order
and disorder in Ghana', The 3tournal of Modern African Studies, 24, 1 (1986), pp. 69-99;
Donald Ray (Canadian), Ghana: Politics, economics and society (London, 1986), pp. 59 and
102-103; Kwame Ninsin, 'Ghanaian politics after 1981: Revolution or evolution', Canadian
3fournal of African Studies, 20, I (1987), pp. 17-37; Baffour Agyeman-Duah, 'Ghana, 1982-6:
The politics of the PNDC', The 3fournal of Modern African Studies, 25, 4 (December, 1987),
pp. 613-642; while Kofi N. Awoonor in his Ghana: A political history (Accra, 1990), p. 251,
allots all of four lines to the Public Tribunals. There is somewhat more treatment of the
Public Tribunals in Kevin Shillington's (British), Ghana and the Rawlings factor (London,
1992), pp. 84-85 and 140-142.
10. For example, Kojo Smith, 'Restructuring Ghana's legal system what are the facts?',
Talking Drums, 3 January 1984, pp. 16-18; Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Public Tribunals and 3rustice
in Ghana (Accra 1988); Samuel Gyandoh, 'Tinkering with the criminal justice system in
common law Africa', Temple Law Review, 62, 4 (Winter 1989), pp. 1131-1174; and Mike
Oquaye, 'Law, justice and the revolution', in E. Gyimah-Boadi, ed., Ghana Under PNDC Rule
(Dakar, 1993), pp. 154-175.
11. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', p. 379.
12. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', pp. 25-26.

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200 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

those whom Tribunal Chairmen considered were 'in contempt' of th

institution. 13
Not surprisingly, much of the literature on the Public Tribunals that was
published outside Ghana has an adversarial or an apologetic quality
Particularly during the early phases of PNDC rule, when the 'Holy War
was in full swing, the Public Tribunals stimulated considerable
controversy. Their defenders saw them as crucial weapons in the
campaign to democratize justice.l4 Opponents attacked their departure
from internationally recognized legal norms.15 By resorting to the death
penalty the Public Tribunals also incurred the implacable hostility o
organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa
that oppose capital punishment.16
Ironically the dearth of scholarly analysis that deals with how this
experiment with 'popular justice' evolved contrasts vividly with the vast
amount of published information about the operations of the Public
Tribunals. The government controlled daily press, seeking to get as much
revolutionary mileage as possible out of these bodies, reported regularly
and in detail on the cases that came before them. 17 Here the thrust was to
show how successfully these instruments of the revolution were reducing
crime and restoring respect for law and order for all strata of Ghanaian
society. The London based weekly news magazine, West Africa, also
followed the activities of the Public Tribunals and supplied a more critical
evaluation, often reporting on events that were embarrassing and which the
local press preferred to ignore. Amnesty International kept close tabs on
the number of people the Public Tribunals executed. After 1991, when
the PNDC government relaxed its control over the printed media in
Ghana, the independent newspapers that rapidly proliferated also became
an even more critical forum for discussing the operations of the Public
Tribunals and the failures of its officers. When I conducted field research
on the Public Tribunals in Ghana in 1994, the Public Tribunals were no
longer feared institutions of revolutionary justice and party politics had

13. One of the best examples of this was the case of Mr Christian Aggrey, editor of The
Ghanaian Times. On account of a letter to the editor that commented unfavourably on a case
before the Accra Public Tribunal that The Ghanaian Times published, the Tribunal 'invited'
him to show 'why he should not be charged with contempt'. It was ironic since in general
Aggrey was an enthusiastic supporter of the Tribunal system; see The Ghanaian Times,
8 August 1985.
14. For example, Victoria Britain, 'Ghana's precarious revolution', New Left Review, 140
July-August, 1983) p. 55; K. Ninsin, 'Ghanaian politics after 1981', p. 23.
15. K. Smith, 'Restructuring Ghana's legal system', pp. 16-18; and S. Gyandoh, 'Tinkering
with the criminal justice system', pp. 113-174.
16. Amnesty International, The Public Trzbunals in Ghana (London, 1984); Amnesty
International, Ghana: Political imprisonment and the death penalty (London, 1991); and Human
Rights Watch/Africa, Ghana: Revolutionary injustice, abuse of the legal system under the PNDC
government (New York, 1992).
17. There is also a vast amount of television footage of their activities that hopefully future
scholars will be able to use.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 201

replaced the 'culture of silence'.l8 It was somewhat easier to get people in

Ghana to talk about the Public Tribunals. Nevertheless, many of the
most important whose careers ended in controversy were either not in
Ghana, or were still reticent about being interviewed. As the Akan
proverb says: one does not show the inside of an empty pot to an elder.

Background to Revolutionary 3'ustice

Soon after Ghana's independence in 1957 special courts that were not
part ofthe regular judicial system began to appear. In 1961, as part ofthe
Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, the Nkrumah government estab-
lished a Special Criminal Division of Ghana's High Court that dispensed
with trial by jury and from which there was no appeal except in cases
involving Presidential pardon.l9 The 'revolutionary' governtnent of the
National Redemption Council that seized power in 1972 established
military tribunals to try those guilty of 'subversion', and from whose
judgments there was no appeal.20 Significantly political and economic
offences were also justiciable by these tribunals and gave rise to the
important case in 1973 of Republic v. Military Tribunal: Ex parte Ofosu-
Amaah which challenged the constitutionality of the military tribunals
trying civilians.21 More recently, when the Armed Forces Revolutionary
Council (AFRC) seized power in 1979, they also established People's
Revolutionary Courts to try members of the previous government who,
'soiled with corruption', had 'chopped Ghana small'.22
These tribunals and revolutionary courts were extraordinary bodies that
were in competition with the country's established courts. Their estab-
lishment reflected a long-standing suspicion of what Kwame Nkrumah as
far back as 1959 had described as a legal system 'made for application to
an imperialist and colonial purpose', which was 'entirely unsuited to a
free nation evolving new methods of social relations in a democratic
society'.23 Nevertheless, there was never any systematic attempt to
restructure Ghana's court system even in the most turbulent years that
followed. Military tribunals and revolutionary courts were ad hoc cre-
ations designed for specific tasks. In addition, the Ghana Bar Association,
with its roots in the Gold Coast Bar Association of the colonial period,
remained the dominant professional association for legal practitioners.
18. The term 'culture of silence' became fashionable in Ghana in 1987 after Flt-Lt.
Rawlings used it to describe that he felt was 'people at various levels of authority . . . using [the
chain of command] to subjugate and demand a subservient state of interrelationship with
subordinates'. People's Daily Graphic, 6 April 1987.
19. Henry L. Bretton, The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah: A study of personal rule in Africa
(New York, 1966), p. 55.
20. WestAfrica, 4 August 1972.
21. A. N. E. Amissah, Criminal Procedure in Ghana (Accra 1982), p. 13.
22. West Africa, 2 July 1979. The AFRC overthrew the government of the Supreme
Military Council which in 1977 had resulted from an internal reshuffling of the NRC.
23. 'Lawyers and Society', speech by Dr Kwame Nkrumah when he laid the foundation
stone for the Ghana Law School in March 1959, cited in the Ghanaian Times, 29 March 1989.

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202 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

To revolutionary progressives this body seemed more intent on preservin

its prerogatives than 'purging' the legal system of its colonial anachronisms.
The People's Revolutionary Courts, which rapidly became one of the
main instruments for effecting the 'house cleaning' that the AFRC set
motion in 1979, represented a resurfacing of this sentiment, but they were
to bequeath major legal and constitutional difficulties to the subsequen
Limann government of the Third Republic. Many of the decisions that
these Courts were responsible for between June and September 1979 wer
hastily arrived at and clearly suspect.24 Nevertheless, the Transitional
Provisions that the AFRC demanded be incorporated into the new
constitution sought to make it impossible to review or change the sentences
they had imposed. In addition, coup-makers, those people who ha
helped them and 'any person acting under the authoricy of the Government
of Ghana' (the AFRC) were to be indemnified. It was an untenabl
situation for a government that considered itself democratic, and inevitably
there were appeals to the regular courts against the judgments of the
People's Revolutionary Courts.
The 'draconian' nature of the Transitional Provisions also occasioned
considerable public debate.25 Indicative of this was the exchange between
the libertarian Dr Kweku Folson, a political scientist at the Universicy of
Ghana, and his leftist colleague in the Law Faculty, Dr Kwamena Ahwoi,
that was played out in the pages of The Legon Observer.26 Folson argued
that allowing individual members of the AFRC and their agents to be
immune from prosecution for any number of illegalities and injustices
committed by them in the name of the revolution would make 'jungle
law part of a constitution that makes a special claim to uphold
accountabilicy'.27 Ahwoi countered by suggesting that legal minds should
not operate in vacuo, but 'should address themselves to the issue of social
justice by examining the institutional support and legal framework that had
made the malevolent dictatorship of Acheampong/Akuffo last for so
long'.28 He felt that the law should be a revolutionary tool used to protect
what the AFRC 'had ... accomplished by extra-legal means'.29 The
People's Revolutionary Courts had provided this lead, and indicated that
there was a much more permanent role for them in Ghana if there was
indeed to be peace with justice.

24. The British section of Amnesty International was so concerned about the nature of this
justice that in 1980 the organization sent a telegram to President Limann appealing for a
judicial review of such cases. West Africa, 23 June 1980.
25. This is how Dr Kweku Folson of the University of Ghana described the Transitional
Provisions. 'The Transitional provisions', Legon Obserrer, 11 April 1980, p. 130.
26. 11 April, 16 May, 29 May, 19 September, 21 November 1980, and 25 December 1981.
27. Kweku Folson, 'The Transitional provisions', Legon Observer, 11 April 1980, p. 131.
28. Kwamena Ahowi, 'The 'Constitution and question of values-I', Legon Obsener, 19
September 1980, p. 223. Ahwoi went on to hold a number of important positions in the
PNDC government; he is currently Minister of Local Government and Rural Development.
29. K. Ahwoi, 'The Constitution and question of values-I', p. 223.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 203

There were a number of leftist organizations like the New Democratic

Movement (NDM), the June Fourth Movement aFM), the National
Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADL), the National Union of
Ghanaian Students (NUGS), the Trades Union Congress (TUC), and the
People's Revolutionary Youth League of Ghana that supported this call for
revolutionary justice.30 Consequently, it was not surprising that when
Rawlings seized power once again on 31 December 1981, revolutionary
courts rapidly emerged with even wider functions of adjudication than had
been the case during the AFRC period. Controlling adjudication was
seen as an integral part of the revolutionary struggle. Worker's Defence
Committees (WDCs) and People's Defence Committees (PDCs) rapidly
assumed adjudicative roles in 'every conceivable aspect of human
activi[y'.3l This included rent cases, land disputes, family matters and
worker versus management disputes. They operated independently of the
regular courts and were obviously open to a great deal of manipulation. In
addition, the new government established two investigative bodies, The
National Investigations Committee (NIC), and The Citizens Vetting
Committee (CVC). The former had only investigative powers, but the
latter which sat in public also could in its capacity as a judicial body mete
out punishment.32 Given the experience of the past, it seemed a foregone
conclusion that ridding the country of corruption could not be trusted to
the regular courts. Indeed, during this period there was a concerted effort
in the government controlled daily press to discredit the regular courts and
the corrupt lawyers and officials who were accused of monopolizing
them.33
Even more indicative of the hostility at this time to the regular judiciary
was the kidnapping and brutal execution-style murder of three High Court
judges who had been most prominent in overturning judgments that the
AFRC's People's Courts had passed.34 This heinous crime was probably
triggered by the Association of Recognized Professional Bodies' (ARPB)
publication of a list of one hundred people who had been murdered since

30. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', p. 149.

31. M. Oquaye, 'Law, justice and revolution', p. 157.
32. The NIC investigated cases of corruption while the CVC was primarily concerned with
tax evasion, over-invoicing, fraudulent bank loans, offences relating to customs and excise and
illegal currency transactions.
33. For example, Daily Graphic, 10 February, 2 March, 31 March, 2 April, and 28 June
1982. The PNDC moved rapidly to control the state-controlled media by replacing editorial
boards of the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times as well as the news and television
directors of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy',
p. 166.
34. This took place during the night of 29 July and early in the morning of the next day. It
was reported in the Daily Graphic on 31 July 1982. The three murdered were Mr Justice
K. A. Agyepong, Mrs Justice C. Koranteng-Addow and Mr Justice F. P. Sarkodee. Also
murdered at this time was a retired army officer, Major Sam Acquah, who was at the time the
director of personnel at the para-statal company, Ghana Industrial Holding Company
(GIHOC). For the best coverage of this tragedy see WestAfrica, 12 July, 19 July, 30 August
1 982.

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204 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

the PNDC had come to power. It was generally conceded that military
personnel had been responsible for most of these killings, but nothing had
been done to apprehend the culprits.35 At this point the relations between
the PNDC and the country's lawyers who were the driving force behind the
ARPB were at rock bottom. After the murders came to light, a 'badly
shaken Chairman Rawlings' condemned on television 'these hideous acts of
terrorism' perpetrated by what he felt were 'enemies of the revolution'.36
Nevertheless, the PNDC could not disassociate itself from the crime. The
Special Investigations Board (SIB) that the PNDC convened recom-
mended that Captain Kojo Tsikata, Special Security Adviser to the PNDC
be arrested and prosecuted, but the Attorney General decided against
doing this.37

The establishment of the Public Tribunals

The PNDC's establishment of the Public Tribunals in September of

1982 was this government's most important attempt to bring order to the
chaotic and often overlapping systems of revolutionary justice that then
prevailed. Even so there was considerable 'opposition to the Tribunal
system from leading members of the Government, especially [from] those
who [were] lawyers'.38 According to Mr George Kwaku Agyekum, the
first Chairman of the Board of Public Tribunals, this 'was why it was
difficult to set up the Tribunals in the first place'.39 It meant that these
institutions had to be designed to counter objections over how the AFRC
courts had operated, and the current PNDC courts were operating. To
address these criticisms and calm the fears that they gave rise to, an
editorial in the Daily Graphic asserted that the 'tribunals [were not going] to
use unorthodox methods, and there was no cause for alarm'.40 Indeed,
the P.N.D.C.L. 24, setting up the Public Tribunals, did spell out how these
tribunals were to be constituted, what their jurisdiction would be, how the
tribunals would conduct themselves and the punishments they could hand
out. At the same time, however, there were numerous provisions in this

35. Instead unruly mobs ransacked two meeting halls that the ARPB used, and the PNDC
'failed to issue any public condemnation of these latest acts of vandalism'. Kevin Shillington,
Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, p. 90.
36. K. Shillington, Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, p. 91.
37. Claims that Tsikata was directly involved continue to give rise to legal challenges. On
29 October 1994 the High Court in London ruled that a 1992 report in the London
Newspaper, The Independent, that the SIB had found that Tsikata had 'masterminded' the
kidnap and subsequent murder of the three judges in 1982 was privileged and therefore could
not be libelous. West Africa, 7-13 November 1994.
38. Statement by Mr G. K. Agyekum in an interview with Mr B. F. Bankie, former Registrar
of the Superior Court of Judicature, 20 May 1987. Cited in Attafuah, 'Criminal justice
policy', p. 202.
39. Agyekum interview. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', p. 202.
40. 1 September 1982.

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 GHANA S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 205

law to ensure that technicalities did not restrict their operation.41 In an

attempt to break the control that Ghana's legal profession exercised over
justice, the law made it possible for the Public Tribunals Board to appoint
members of the public who were not necessarily lawyers to sit on Public
Tribunals.42 In addition, though these Tribunals were to deal only with
criminal offences, the definition of what constituted such offences ranged
widely from murder and armed robbery to include what was described as
'economic sabotage'.
The transparently political nature of many of the trials that followed, the
harsh punishments handed down, and even worse the total independence
of the Tribunals from the supervision of the regular courts, swiftly evoked
criticism from the Ghana Bar Association which publicly condemned this
'misguided attempt to supplant the machinery of the ordinary criminal
courts of Ghana'.43 The Association called upon its members to boycott
the Public Tribunals for five major reasons among which the Association
cited the lack of any system of appeal, their decision in advance to decide
what 'technicalities' would not be tolerated, and their lack of experience in
conducting criminal trials. It was criticism at a particularly sensitive time
coming as it did so soon after the execution-style murder of the three High
Court judges and in an atmosphere of suspicion that government officials
were involved in these murders.44 The Bar Association's decision not to
accept the Public Tribunals put the 'revolution' and the 'arrogant people'
who represented the 'old times' on a collision course.45
Established revolutionary groups like the June Four Movement, the
People's Revolutionary League and the African Youth Command
immediately attacked the Association in particular and lawyers in
general. In Koforidua 'the Progressives of the Eastern Region' demanded
that all lawyers in private practice close down their chambers within three
days. They promised that any failure to do so would be met 'with the
severest formidable force and destruction'.46 The Daily Graphic echoed
this demand with a bold headline that screamed 'CLOSE DOWN

41. For example, provision 17 stipulated that 'non-compliance with the rules governing the
mode of trial shall not render a trial invalid unless a substantial miscarriage of justice has been
occasioned'.
42. However, the Public Tribunals Board, which was to administer the system, out of its five
to fifteen members one had to be a lawyer of not less than 5 years standing. P.N.D.C.L. 24,
2 (1).
43. Daily Graphic, 28 September 1982. For example, one of the first cases to come before
the first of these tribunals involved three ex-PNP (The People's National Party the
governing party that the PNDC had removed) men who were accused of taking a 'loan' of one
million cedis. In the government controlled press such people were singled out as 'enemies
of the revolution'. Daily Graphic, 16 September 1982.
44. The Special Investigations Board (SIB) that the PNDC had set up under the
Chairmanship of Justice Samuel Azu-Crabbe to investigate the murders was then sitting, and
had already publicly revealed the extent to which well connected soldiers had been involved in
the plot to kill the judges and the retired army major. Daily Graphic, 4 September 1982.
45. Daily Graphic, 1 October 1982.
46. Daily Graphic, 1 October 1982.

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 206 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

CHAMBERS'.47 Indeed, the entire front page was devoted to attacking

the Bar Association and bringing lawyers and agents of the regular courts
into disrepute. The front page editorial asked rhetorically if the 'Ghana
Bar Association [was] Hanging Itself? Particularly in Accra, lawyers felt
it was only a matter of time before their chambers would be invaded,
and they hastily removed their most valuable records in anticipation of
'destruction'.48

At the same time, however, the Daily Graphic displayed the ambiguity
the regular legal system and its practitioners that has characterized Gh
feelings in general to this aspect of its colonial inheritance. The edit
careful to distinguish between the 'handful' of 'old time' lawyers
sparsely attended Kumasi Bar Association's meeting where the dec
was taken to boycott the Tribunals, and putatively a much large num
'progressives' who did not want to 'bring the noose down on the e
institution'.49 The Ghanaian Times, the country's other governmen
trolled daily newspaper, also reflected this ambiguity. It attacked t
Association's decision as 'a futile attempt to redeem the empty distin
and flattened reputations of these guardians of our neo-colonial institut
of justice'. But at the same time it pointed out that only seven
members had attended the Kumasi meeting.50 Significantly, when
paper reported on the confrontation a few days later, the focus was
June Four Movement in Cape Coast urging 'progressive lawyers in t
Association to fight for a purge of the Association, and to smoke o
reactionary ones'.5l The Ghana legal profession reflected the divis
the society at large with younger lawyers more likely to be support
the left wing NADL.
The immediate result of l:he Bar Association's opposition to the Public
Tribunals was to keep alive the antagonism to the regular courts, and the
numerous PDC and WDC courts that the government conceded had no
legal standing continued to function.52 One reaction to this situation was
to expand the adjudicative role of what was still only one Tribunal.53 The

47. Daily Graphic, 1 October 1982.

48. Interview with Mr Tetteh, a senior member of the Ghana Bar, Accra, 11 July
1994. Courts were also under attack. According to Amnesty International, 'by the end of
1982 at least five courts had been closed by the action of individual PDCs and WDCs.
These were district magistrates courts at Agona Swedru and Sogakofe, and district courts
grade II at Asamankese, Salaga and Offinso'. Amnesty International, The Public Tribunals in
Ghana, p. 3.
49. Daily Graphic, 1 October 1982.
50. Ghanaian Times, 30 September 1982. It was hardly surprising, given the hostility to
lawyers in the country at the time, that it would have been difficult if not unsafe for them
to travel to Kumasi.
51. Ghanaian Times, 5 October 1982.
52. Mr George K. Agyekum, Chairman of the Board of the Public Tribunals, Ghanaian
Times, 31 December 1982.
53. The intention from the start was to create many tribunals, but until February 1983 there
was only one tribunal which sat in Accra in the old State House building.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 207

threat of counter coups quickly added the trial of subversives to its

responsibilities, and the possibility of death sentences.54 Rampant smug-
gling in the border areas brought the promise that Public Tribunals would
be established in these locations.55 For a while the Tribunal functioned
as a price control court until special courts could be set up for this
purpose. To demonstrate the impartiality of its actions, the Tribunal
prosecuted soldiers guilcy of theft and corruption, but most of all, as an
indication of the intention to truly institutionalize these courts, a second
Tribunal was set up under the Chairmanship of Mr Addo Aikins.56 In
early 1983 these Tribunals began to tour the country to bring revolutionary
justice to its many regions.57 Shortly thereafter Kumasi received its own
Regional Tribunal under the Chairmanship of Mr Kwame Arhin, and by
the middle of the year there were regular sessions of the Eastern Regional
Tribunal in Koforidua. Also there was talk of establishing a Tribunal at
Tema harbour where organized crime was rife.
The mass deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria in early 1983 exacer-
bated the social instability in the country. Shortly after hundreds of
thousands of young Ghanaians began returning, with no chances of finding
work in Ghana, the Tribunals began to sentence armed robbers to death.58
One of the first such cases involved an armed robber named 'Padmore' who
was executed by firing squad a scant three days after this sentencing.59
Whether cocoa smuggling increased during this period is a moot point, but
on 15 June George Agyekum, the Chairman of the Board of Public
Tribunals, publicly advocated the death penalty for cocoa smugglers.60
The bloody coup attempt on June 23 in which at least twenty six people
died made the PNDC acutely hostile to subversives. The trial of those
involved in the 23 November 1982 coup attempt was going on at this time
before the Accra Public Tribunal, and the relative leniency of the sentences
that seemed likely could be construed as having encouraged filrther coup
attempts.6l Retribution for involvement in the much more threatening
23 June abortive coup was much harsher. According to Amnesty Inter-
national nineteen people were sentenced to death by the Public Tribunal
in Accra, and many were executed in August right after they were

54. Daily Graphic, 4 November 1982.

55. Daily Graphic, 9 November 1982.
56. Daily Graphic, 20 October 1982.
57. People's Daily Graphic, 7 February and 17 February. In 1983 the Daily Graphic became
the People's Daily Graphic. It retained this name until 3 January 1994 when the paper
reverted to its original name.
58. P.N.D.C.L. 24 gave the Tribunals the authority to impose the death penalty.
5 9. People 's Daily Graphic, 1 2 and 1 6 May 1 9 8 3 .
60. People's Daily Graphic, 1 5 June 1 983.
61. About twenty-six people were tried by the Public Tribunal for their involvement in this
coup. Nearly all were convicted, but there were no death sentences. The harshest
punishments were life imprisonment. Arnnesty International, Ghana: Political imprisonment
and the death penalty, pp. 29-30.

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208 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

convicted.62 Around the same time the Accra Public Tribunal also
sentenced to death the four men found guilty of murdering the three
judges and the retired army officer, and they were also immediately
executed.63
The putative involvement of 'professionals' in the 1983 abortive coup
once again increased hostility towards the regular courts to a fever
pitch. Members of the Judicial Service Workers Defence committee shut
down the Supreme Court in Accra, and according to the Ghanaian Times
were in contact with the Board of Public Tribunals 'to take over the
functions and duties of the traditional courts. Members of the Bench and
Bar 'were advised to keep off all courts'.64 This clearly went beyond
anything that the PNDC was planning, and the Secretary for Justice,
Mr G. E. K. Akins, warned against a 'precipitous abolition of the judicial
system'.65 Nevertheless it seems that at this time the PNDC did want to
reduce the importance of the regular courts and expand the responsibilities
of the Public Tribunals. Significantly, in the estimates for 1984 the
allotment for ffie administration of the regular courts was the smallest
single item in the budget.66 Reflective of its diminished role in criminal
adjudication, the Accra High Court had no cases of robbery before it in
1983, none for manslaughter and only four for murder.67
Indicative of the intended expansion of the role of the Public Tribunals
was the increase in their number in 1984. During the year the country's
ten regions acquired Public Tribunals, and also places where there were
especially high rates of crime like Tema and the Obuasi goldfield area. In
addition, in July, the PNDC announced it was going to set up a system of
District and Community Tribunals which were indeed described in
P.N.D.C.L. 78, gazetted on 8 June 1984. This new law replaced
P.N.D.C.L. 24, established National, Regional, District, and Community
Public Tribunals with original jurisdiction and an appeal system to the
Regional and finally the National Public Tribunal.68 The appeal system
was an important response to what had been one of the most serious

62. Amnesty International, Ghana: Political imprisonment cznd the death penalty, pp. 30-31.
63. The trial of the five men accused of these murders began on 21 July. One was tried in
absentia since he had escaped from jail a few days before the trial began. The trial was
completed on 16 August and by 1 September all those in custody had been executed.
People's Daily Graphic, 21 July, 16 August, and 1 September 1983.
64. Ghanaian Times, 24 June 1983.
65. Ghanaian Times, 27 June 1983.
66. The estimated expenditure was 19,346,000 cedis out of a total estimated budget of over
sixteen billion cedis. The government planned on spending more than ten million cedis on
fuel and power than on the administration of justice, and four and a half times as much on
youth and sports. The P.N.D.C. budget statement and economic policy for 1984 (Accra 1984),
pp.-27-28.
67. Information supplied by Mr E. A. Owusu-Ansah, Deputy Judicial Secretary, Accra,
Supreme Court, 12 August 1994.
68. The District Tribunals, however, were not established until 1988. Information from
an interview with Mr N. C. Agbevor, Financial Administrator of the Public Tribunals, Accra,
5 August 1994.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS
209

criticisms of the Public Tribunal system. Capital sentences had in the

past been subject to review by the PNDC Council, but given the political
nature of many of the important cases that had come before the Public
Tribunal there was transparently little detachment in such matters. This
more elaborate system of appeals was an attempt to answer this criticism,
but at the same time to maintain the independence of the Public Tribunal
system by making the National Public Tribunal the final appeal court.
Also, the new law categorically denied the right to remove cases that had
begun in the Public Tribunals to the regular courts.
Detailed descriptions of the responsibilities of these various tribunals
sought to eliminate the confusion that had continued to exist over the
judicial roles of the Public Tribunals, vis-a-vis the regular courts, and at
the same time further bring under control judicial activity that extra-legal
bodies such as the CDCs and the WDCs still exercised. The 'judges
affair' indicated how little 'clarity' there was 'regarding the jurisdiction of
the established courts and the Public Tribunals'.69 Initially in December
1982, the Attorney General, George Aikins, had declared that the per-
petrators of this murder were to be tried by the regular courts. Given the
not so hidden involvement of leading members of the PNDC in this sordid
affair, the Public Tribunal must have seemed a venue that could be more
easily restricted to prosecuting only the actual trigger men.70
However, at the same time the Public Tribunals were also far less open
to influence from well connected persons than was the case for the regular
courts. The highly charged Dansoman murder case in 1984 was a
particularly good example. For some reason that is difficult to determine
the case came before the Accra High Court, but there was continual
agitation both from the family of the victim, the state controlled press and
various revolutionary organizations to have it transferred to the Accra
Public Tribunal.7l The delays in bringing the case to court, and the
incompetence of the police in providing evidence increased pressure on the
PNDC to transfer the case to the Public Tribunal. The Accra High Court
verdict of not guilty intensified this demand, and it seemed for a while as
though this would happen. However, to have done so would have violated
the separation between the Public Tribunals and the regular criminal
courts that the PNDC was seeking to create.72

69. Amnesty International, The Public Tribunals in Ghana, p. 7.

70. (SIB) recommended that ten persons be tried for the crime among whom was Kojo
Tsikata, the PNDC's head of state security. Nevertheless, the Attorney General refused to
proceed against him. Instead, there was a bitter campaign in the state controlled press and
on the television to discredit the SIB and suggest that its Chairman, Justice Azu-Crabbe, was
playing politics, and that the CIA was influencing its decisions. People's Daily Graphic
9 April, 3 June, and 4 June 1983.
71. The case involved a shooting of a bank clerk at a filling station in the Dansoman area of
Accra. The station manager and others were charged, but it seemed as if well-placed friends
of the accused were manoeuvring to get them off. Ghanaian Times, 26 June and 7 July 1984.
72. The role of 'insider influence' in preventing this from happening cannot be ruled out.

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 210 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

The Public Tribunals on trial

One of the important results of the attempts to regularize the operations

of the Public Tribunals was to make them increasingly like the regular
courts that they were supposed to replace. This was evident when I
visited a session of the National Public Tribunal in the old State House in
Accra in July 1984. On a superficial level, attire, the use of vernacular
languages, and the participation of lay people on the judicial panel stamped
this court as different from its 'traditional' counterparts. It was evident
however, that those panel members who were qualified lawyers dominated
its proceedings. Not surprisingly it had also become subject to delays and
postponements that characterized the operations of the regular courts.
Shortly before representatives from Amnesty International and other
international jurists had visited and this had contributed to the Tribunal's
concern with following accepted judicial procedure. Many Ghanaian
lawyers were ignoring the Ghana Bar Association's call to boycott
the Public Tribunals. Defendants had legal counsel and lawyers were
obviously an integral part of the Tribunal's operations. Among them were
senior members of the Bar who felt that by boycotting ttie Public Tribunals
they were 'violating their code of ethics by not making their expertise
available both to the government and to individuals charged with serious
crimes'.73 The rapid conviction and execution of many of the latter
provided humanitarian reasons for such involvement.74
Ironically the harsh nature of the punishments that the Public Tribunals
meted out, increased the stakes and as many people realised inflated the
cost of legal counsel. Fear of conviction also contributed to attempts to
corrupt Tribunal personnel. By 1984 cases of this nature had become a
regular feature of the Tribunals' case load.75 Undoubtedly the most
celebrated of these cases involved the Chairman of the Ashanti Public
Tribunal, Mr Kwame Arhin. He was accused, among other things, of
having 'friends take money on his behalfu to free accused people before his
tribunal.76 He claimed that he had been 'framed up'.77 Eventually he
was able to get the National Public Tribunal to acquit him on the grounds

73. Interview with Mr Y. N. Agbesi, a senior member of the Ghana bar (he had begun to
practise in 1966), Accra, 4 August 1994. By 1986, Mr George Agyekum estimated that over
a hundred lawyers had appeared before the Tribunals. Speech delivered at the Maastricht
University, 20 December 1986, cited in Attafuah, 'Criminal justice and policy', p. 246.
74. This was the reason given by Mr Y. N. Nelson for his decision to represent clients (many
of whom could not pay him) before the Accra Public Tribunal, 4 August 1994.
75. For example see the Ghanaian Times, 10 January, 18 January, 28 March, and 16 April
1984.
76. Ghanaian Times, 7 June 1984. Also he was accused of taking a 72,000 loan from
Tribunal fines and using seized vehicles for his private use.
77. Ghanaian Times, 20 July 1984. He acknowledged that he had appropriated fines as
personal loans, but argued that at the time this had been an unwritten, accepted practice for
members of the Tribunal. S. Gyandoh, 'Tinkering with the criminal justice system', p. 1135.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 211

that the 'evidence was full of inconsistencies'.78 There was considerable

public protest over what was seen as a miscarriage of justice and forced the
PNDC to place the judgment before the recently established National
Appeals Tribunal.79 Even so the case dragged on until October 1985 with
Arhin failing to show up at hearings. Only unrelenting pressure from
the Ghanaian Times kept the matter in the public eye.80 Eventually the
National Appeals Tribunal did reverse the lower court's decision and Arhin
was convicted.8l
The ruling by the Accra Public Tribunal in the murder case involving Nii
Amoo-Addy was also a cause of considerable embarrassment to the
PNDC. The Tribunal acquitted the accused on the grounds that he had
not been familiar with the mechanism of the weapon that he had used in
the murder. Chairman Rawlings was furious when he heard this and
went on radio and television to condemn the judgment on the grounds that
it was 'an insult to the intelligence of the public'.82 More ominously, he
felt that this decision was an indication that 'some of the Tribunals were
beginning to take on the characteristics of some of the traditional
courts'.83 As Kevin Shillington has argued, 'he saw ... the court's
decision [as] threaten[ing] to discredit the whole Tribunal system'.84
Particularly was this so since the accused, Nii Amoo-Addy, was a relative,
and to demonstrate impartiality Rawlings ordered his immediate
re-arrest. The National Appeals Tribunal re-heard the case and Nii
Amoo-Addy was subsequently convicted and executed.85
There also remained considerable pressure on these Tribunals to con-
form to international standards of justice. In 1984 the International
Commission of Jurists sent Professor Cees Flinterman to investigate the
human rights situation in Ghana and the functioning of the Public
Tribunals in particular. In his published report he recommended an
appeals system either to the regular courts or the establishment of 'a Public
Tribunal of Appeals whose members should be elected from the Bench by
the Chief Justice'.86 By this time the PNDC had instituted an appeals
system, and according to the Chairman of the Public Tribunals, George

78. Ghanaian Times, 8 August 1984.

79. Ghanaian Times, 11 January 1985.
80. The Editor of the Ghanaian Times, Mr Christian Aggrey, was particularly critical of how
the Board of Public Tribunals had conducted this appeal. Ghanaian Times, 14 August 1985.
81. S. Gyandoh, 'Tinkering with the criminal justice system', p. 1135.
82. The Ghanaian Times, 13 August 1984.
83. Ghanaian Times, 13 August 1984.
84. K. Shillington, Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, p. 140.
85. The Ghanaian Times, 14 September 1984. At this time Rawlings was also determined
not to show partiality in the murder case involving his friend, Flt-Lt. Kojo Lee. He was also
convicted and sentenced to be executed. He appealed to the National Appeals Tribunal
which dismissed his appeal, and Rawlings refused his petition for clemency. K. Shillington,
Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, p. 142. He was executed shortly afterwards. The Ghanaian
Times, 1 October 1984.
86. Nii K. Bentsi-Enchill, 'Freedom and Justice?', West Africa, 6 May 1985.

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212 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Agyekum, the Chief Justice had stopped 'his earlier bickering' about the
Public Tribunals.87 Nevertheless the country's legal establishment
remained hostile to the Public Tribunals. At the annual meeting of
the Ghana Bar Association in September 1985, after heated debate, the
membership soundly defeated an attempt to rescind the prohibition on
members appearing before the Public Tribunals.88
However, in spite of this opposition the Public Tribunals clearly enjoyed
widespread public support. Indeed, they had become one of Ghana's
'great informal domestic "tourist" attractions'.89 According to the
Chairman of the Public Tribunals, Mr George Agyekum, 'the volume of
work [had] been tremendous'. Indeed, as an indication of their popular
support, Agyekum maintained that people involved in the high court 'very
often wanted a transfer to the tribunal'.90 Equally indicative of support,
there were petitioners who wanted the Public Tribunals to deal with their
land cases! It was not surprising that this was so given the near state of
paralysis that existed in the regular courts. Out of a total of 8,548 cases
filed in the circuit courts in 1984 only 463 were disposed of. Nor were
things getting better. In the following year out of the 11,468 filed, 10,365
remained.91 In contrast the Public Tribunals were able to maintain their
reputation for efficaciously dealing with their case loads. In 1987, the first
year for which I have figures, the Public Tribunals were able to dispose of
1,270 of the 1,374 case that came before them.92 This continued to be
the pattern, and we can assume that in the past, when appeals were more
pro forma, the case disposal rate was even higher.
An increasing standardization of their operating procedures gave the
Public Tribunals more confidence to hand down death sentences. The
19 June 1983 coup attempt had set the precedent for sentencing coup
plotters to death, and from then onwards those found guilty of plotting the
armed overthrow of the PNDC were liable to face the firing squad. An
even larger number of convicted murderers and armed robbers were
similarly dealt with. According to Amnesty International's figures, in
1985 the Public Tribunals sentenced 58 people to death, almost doubling
the numberfor 1984.93 In addition, the Public Tribunals condemned to
death a number of major bank fraud perpetrators for 'economic sabotage',
even though, as the Ghanaian Times recognized, some of them were 'small

87. Nii K. Bentsi-Enchill, 'Administration of Justice', WestAfrica, 27 February 1984.

88. Ben Ephson, 'Bar keeps boycott', West Africa, 11 November 1985. The vote was 90
to 36.
89. K. Attafuah, 'Criminal iustice policy', p. 222.
90. WestAfrica, 11 November 1985.
91. 'ChiefJustice deplores adjournment of cases', Ghanaian Times, 7 October 1988.
92. Muhammad A. Mongu, 'The Task of the public tribunals', Ghanaian Times, 18 May
1989. In 1988 out of 1,563 cases 1,390 were disposed. In all fairness it should be pointed
out that in general criminal cases can be dealt with more rapidly.
93. Ghana: Political Imprisonment and the Death Penalty, p. 41. The number for 1984 was
32 with nine in absentia.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS
213

fry'.94 Cocoa smuggling also remained punishable by death, but in spite

of threats to do so the Public Tribunals did not resort to such sentences for
something so widespread. Instead, they were content to pass out harsh
terms of imprisonment for even relatively minor quantities of smuggled
cocoa. Undoubtedly they were dealing with very small fry.
Also indicative of this coming of age, was the continuing expansion of the
system. In March 1985 the Greater Accra Regional Tribunal was estab-
lished partially to check the activities of 'unauthorized tribunals' that were
still operating in the Accra area.95 In the same month the Central
Regional Public Tribunal was also inaugurated. In spelling out this
Tribunal's responsibilities, the Coordinator for Investigations, Revenue
Commissions and Tribunals, Kwamena Ahwoi, indicated how much
broader the jurisdiction of these bodies was becoming since their creation
in 1982.96 There was also mention once again of the creation of District
and Communicy Tribunals. Some were calling for chieftaincy and land
tribunals to 'handle disputes in these areas'.97 A year later industrial
tribunals were to be set up 'to deal with certain labour matters including
arbitrary dismissal of workers'.98 As far as the Public Tribunal system
proper was concerned, by 1986 all of the country's regions had Tribunals,
and there were altogether fifteen such bodies in operation.99 Finally in
1988 the long promised District and Community Tribunals came into
existence. Altogether there were nineteen of the former and only one of
the latter. Civil law still remained outside their adjudication, but many of
the matters that CDCs and PDCs had dealt with passed under the
adjudication of the Public Tribunals.
In addition, the focus of their major criminal adjudicative activities
underwent subtle yet important changes in the latter years of the 1980s and
early 1 990s. As far as capital crimes were concerned, coup plotting
declined in significance and those sentenced to death were increasingly
armed robbers or murderers. According to Amnesty International, sixty-
one people were sentenced to death in 1987 for armed robbery, the highest
number for all the years this international organization had so far kept
figures. Indicative also of the shift away from punishing more specifically

94. Ghanaian Times, 28 May 1985. Four were sentenced for 'duping' the Ghana
Commercial Bank of 56 million cedis, and five for taking 26-7 million cedis from the Social
Security Bank.
95. Ghanaian Times, 2 March 1985.
96. Ghanaian Times, 1 8 March. They were to prosecute those who did not pay local rates,
absented themselves from compulsory work, overcharged for transportation and, reflective of
the serious problems with bush fires that the recent drought had contributed to, they were also
to prosecute those who contravened the provisions of the Bush Fire Law of 1983.
97. Ghanaian Times, 10 June 1985.
98. People's Daily Graphic, 2 October 1986.
99. This excluded the National Appeals Tribunal. From here onwards the number of
tribunals hovered around 13 to 15. Information from Mr N. C. Agbevor, Board of Public
Tribunals, Accra, 5 August 1994.

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214 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

anti-revolutionary crimes, the Public Tribunals took on the responsibilicy

of prosecuting a number of gruesome 'ritual murders'. The Sefwi Bekwai
and the Noyem ritual murder cases in 1987-88 were media events that
riveted the attention of the Ghanaian public on the National Public
Tribunal where these cases were tried.l?? Particularly the Western
Region, the Ashanti, and the Brong Ahafo Regional Tribunals were active
crusaders in a frustrating struggle against 'galamsey' mining, and gold and
diamond smuggling.l?l The Tribunals were also active in prosecuting
aliens for crimes committed in Ghana. These ranged from foreigners
involved in black market currency transactions, seamy operators seeking
illegally to export Ghanaian wildlife, or timber, fishing without permission
in Ghana's territorial waters, to capital offences involving major 'economic
sabotage'. 102 At the same time the Public Tribunals, with extensive
publicity, could also be used to prosecute Ghanaians involved in crimes
against foreigners.l03
Undoubtedly, however, the most important new area of adjudication
that the Public Tribunals took up was the prosecution of narcotics offences.
Initially these cases involved either the growing, use or smuggling of
cannabis, but between 1986 and 1989 cocaine and heroin offences became
much more common.l04 Indeed to combat this rise in hard drug use the
PNDC passed Law 236 to tighten up the prosecution of such crimes and
make sentences stiffer.l05 As an indication of how serious this threat was
seen, in 1990 Ghana became a signatory to three international conventions
designed to control illegal trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic
substances. The daily newspapers reported arrests and sentences the
stiffness of which were obviously designed to deter offenders.
Supefficially this aggressiveness seemed to work for after 1990, according
to Mr Charles Agbevor of the Board of Public Tribunals, the number of
prosecutions declined, and from then onwards the offenders before the

100. There was a great deal of television coverage of these trials.

101. 'Galamsey' is small scale gold mining, at that time illegal.
102. For example, in August 1988 six people were tried for trying to export 2,000
parrots. One of them was an American. Ghanaian Times, 27 August 1988. In January
1988 six people were sentenced to die for fraudulent cattle deals that cost Ghana over
$4 million. They were Niger and Mali nationals. Ghanaian Times, 21 January 1988.
103. The two most celebrated cases of this nature were the David Agudu and the Thomas
Dylan murder cases. The former was accused, convicted and executed for the murder of an
American woman tourist while the former shared a similar fate for murdering a British
national. People's Daily Graphic, 2 February and 3 May 1990.
104. The cultivation and use of cannabis seems to be a recent development in Ghana,
occurring, Neil Savishinsky has argued, in the last ten to fifteen years. By 1990 this had
increased to the point where the government declared 1990 the 'Year of the war on
Wee'. Neil Savishinsky, 'Rastafari in the promised land: The spread of a Jamaican socio-
religious movement among the youth of West Africa', African Studies Review, 37, 3 (December
1994), p. 29.
105. The Narcotics Drugs (Control Enforcement and Sanctions) Law. It came into effect
on 24 May 1990. People's Daily Graphic, 28 May 1990.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 215

Public Tribunals were mainly Nigerians.l06 This may be too optimistic a

view of the situation since anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that
if anyching drug use among the young has increased.l07 Diminishing
numbers of prosecutions probably reflect the impossibility of checking what
has now become more socially widespread.
By the end of the 1980s the Public Tribunals had obviously become an
integral part of the Ghanaian judicial system. Nevertheless, even though
they more than paid for their keep, generating in 1988 over 600 million
cedis in revenue from fines, only 9 3 percent of this amount the State used
to run the Tribunals.l08 Undoubtedly part of the reason for this tight-
fistedness was due to the high costs associated with the Tribunals'
'draconian' sentencing policies. For example it was possible in the early
years of the Public Tribunals for those convicted of relatively minor acts of
cocoa smuggling to receive sentences of fifteen and twenty years.l09 The
result was grave overcrowding especially at the Medium Security Prison at
Nsawam. So bad did the situation become that by 1988 there were
discussions even in the state controlled press about reducing custodial
sentences. In October of that year Mr P. A. Addo, the Ashanti Regional
Director of the Department of Social Welfare advocated instead 'probation
and a parole system ... to reduce overcrowding ... and eliminate the
stigmata attached to discharged convicts'.1l0 It was difficult, however, in
an atmosphere of get-tough-on-crime for significant changes to take place,
and in 1988 and 1989 the population of Ghana's prisons continued to
increase, albeit at a lesser rate than had been the case in 1986 and
1987.11l It was hardly surprising that one of the first scandals that
Ghana's non-state controlled press directed its attention to was the
'shocking story of hunger despair and death' in the country's prison
System. 1 12

One of the ironies of the Public Tribunals' existence was that the chronic
problem of under-financing that had plagued the regular courts, and had
contributed to their decline also affected these instruments of revolutionary
justice. Like the regular courts the Public Tribunals functioned with

106. Interview with Mr Agbevor, Accra, 5 August 1994.

107. For a discussion of this issue see N. Savishinsky, 'Rastafari in the promised land',
pp. 28-29.
108. Ghanaian Times, 18 May 1989. Howmuch ofthis moneywas actually collected and
accounted for is very difficult to determine.
109. Ghanaian Times, 13 June 1984. This case involved smuggling eleven and a half bags
of cocoa. Often prison sentences could be considerably lengthened if stiff fines were not
paid. For example in 1984 the Accra Public Tribunal sentenced seven men to a total of
twenty four years for stealing 240 bags of sugar with an additional twenty years if they did not
'refund' 264,000 cedis. Ghanaian Times, 14 June 1984.
110. Ghanaian Times, 25 October 1988.
1ll. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 17-23 February 1992. The percentage increase declined
from ten and eleven and ten percent to four and five percent.
112. 'Inside Ghana's penitentiaries-A shocking story of hunger, despair and death', The
Ghanaian Chronicle, 17-23 and 24-30 February, 1992.

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216 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

inadequate and outmoded equipment.ll3 More seriously, there was

always an ad hoc quality to how these bodies functioned. As late as 1988
they were without their own buildings. The main Accra Tribunals rotated
their sittings in State House, but they lost even this space when they were
forced to move to make way for the Conference of Non-Aligned States in
1989. They then shared space in the offices of the Greater Accra
Metropolitan Council. It was not until 1993, when their status was to be
drastically changed, that they finally obtained their own building. The
situation outside of Accra was even worse. Particularly was this so after
the establishment of District Assemblies in 1988 which displaced many of
the Tribunals. Most seriously affected were the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo,
and the Northern Regional Tribunals which according to a reporter in the
Ghanaian Times, had 'very often ground to a halt for lack of sitting
places'. 1 14
Even more serious was the poor pay for Tribunal personnel. In 1985,
as a way of improving conditions, Public Tribunal members were given a
40 percent duty allowance, but nevertheless by 1990 the disparity in
income between Public Tribunal Board members and magistrates in the
regular courts was considerable. Even greater was the disparity in income
between panel members and the lawyers who appeared before them to
represent clients charged with capital offences. Ironically the severity of
Tribunal sentences, and the strictures that the Bar Association placed on
appearing before the Public Tribunals all served to dramatically escalate
the cost of legal counsel. In 1990, when the prohibition against appearing
before the Public Tribunals was honoured more in the breach that in the
keeping, a lawyer could demand as much as four million Cedis (over
$1 1,000) for his services in a murder trial.l 15 At this time board members
of the Public Tribunal were making 46,000 Cedis a month (about $1,500
a year). Under these circumstances it was hardly surprising that bribery of
Tribunal personnel was an on-going problem as the 1990 case involving
two prominent Accra lawyers, Ellison Owusu-Fordjour and Emmanuel
Arthur-Mensah, indicated.ll6
In 1990 there was another attempt to 'lift [Tribunal] salaries to par with
judicial salaries in addition to a 40 percent duty allowance'.ll7 Clearly,
however, Public Tribunal personxlel felt they were still being left behind,
and in May 1992, as the future of the Public Tribunals was being debated,
they staged a short strike to back their demands for more pay and better
conditions of service. Most galling of all to them was that their salaries at

113. K. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', p. 237.

1 14. Ghanaian Times, 18 May 1989.
115. Information from Mr Charles Agbevor, Accra, 5 August 1994.
116. Eventually they were convicted for attempting to bribe a panel chairman and panel
members of a National Public Tribunal. WestAfrica, 9-15 April 1990.
117. Information from Mr C. Agbevor. Accra, 5 August 1994.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 217

that time were 'far lower than those paid to colleagues in the Judicial
Service', for work that by its very nature had 'made [them] many
enemies'.ll8 In addition, they could see that the regular courts were
receiving far more of the government's attention. From 1987 the number
of regular courts and justices had been expanding.ll9 In the 1990s this
process accelerated, and by 1991, when the Consultative Assembly to
frame a new constitution for the Fourth Republic began its sessions, there
was considerable debate over whether there should be any role for the
Public Tribunals in the new order.
Partly this was a predictable reaction to an institution that had 'many
enemies' and whose officers had publicly 'confessed' to not always having
been 'fair to accused persons'. In 1988, at the annual conference of
chairmen and legal officers of the Public Tribunals, there had been a
plethora of mea culpas on the part of Tribunal chairmen who recognized
that in the past they had been 'mischievously vindictive'.l20 The 'culture
of silence' was beginning to open up, and it was becoming harder to
suppress information about scandals that discredited the government and
its institutions. Over time such events had also accumulated and predict-
ably many involved the Public Tribunals. The Bittar case of 1990 had
resulted in attempts to bribe a chairman of the National Public Tribunal,
Mr Kwaku Boakye Danquah, and members of his panel.l21 Boakye
Danquah also profoundly annoyed the PNDC leadership in the Safo Adu
case by ruling in favour of the defendant.l22 The state appealed against
the ruling, which under PNDC Law 78 it was entitled to do, but there was
so much interference in the proceedings that the independence of the
Public Tribunal was seriously questioned.
In the past there had been similar cases of political interference in the
operations of the Public Tribunals, but the two cases had dragged on for so
long that they coincided with the emergence of a free press in the country
that rapidly made exposure of the state's role causes celebres. Almost as
soon as The Ghanaian Chronicle: The True Independent came into being in
1991, it began to report on the State's unsavoury role in both these cases,
and to call for Mr Bright Akwetey, the State Special Prosecutor, to 'be

1 18. Ghanaian Times, 14 May 1992.

119. 'More circuits courts being opened', Ghanaian Times, 25 February 1987. There were
also going to be 'a planned programme . . . to acquaint judges with High Court rules'. It is
possible that some of the money to cover the cost of this expansion came from international
aid agencies. In 1987 the World Bank made over one hundred million dollars available
to Ghana for 'improving resource use in the public sector'. The World Bank Annual Report,
1 987.
120. Nana Fredua Agyeman, 'Tribunal "confessions" ', West Africa, 8 February 1988.
121. Initially the case involved corruption in the timber industry.
122. Dr Kwame Safo Adu, a former cabinet member in the Busia government and director
of the Ghanaian pharmaceutical company, Industrial Chemical Laboratories, was accused of
'economic sabotage'. He was charged with misusing loans he had received to build a
chemical plant. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 11-17 November 1991.

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218 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

eased out of office'. 123 It was an indication of how dangerously politiciz

the conflict became that Boakye Danquah felt that his life was in danger
Ghana, and he eventually fled to Great Britain via the Ivory Coast. He
was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and th
Voice of America (VOA), and gave a 'damning indictment' of how t
Public Tribunals were 'instrument[s], ensuring PNDC dominance'.l2
Neither did the PNDC's well-publicized suspension in January 1991 of M
George Agyekum, who was then Chairman of a National Public Tribunal
do much for the image of these bodies.l25 The suspension caused
considerable excitement in the country, and the enquiry the governmen
conducted to look into 'certain matters' arising from a case that he ha
tried sullied his reputation as well as that of the PNDC Secretary, Mr A
Dadzie. 126

The eclipse of Revolutionary ffustice

These conflicts between the PNDC and the officials of the Public
Tribunals reflected the tension between different political orientations that
had always existed between different factions within the leadership. In
spite of considerable socialist rhetoric the Economic Recovery Programme
(ERP) that the government had launched with the 1983 budget clearly
moved Ghana into the IMF/World Bank camp. Accepting loans from
capitalist donors and in general seeking to attract western capital invariably
placed revolutionary systems of justice on the defensive. Yet at the same
time, as Attaifuah and others have argued, institutions like the Public
Tribunals were usefil tools for suppressing domestic dissent both from the
right artd from the left. 127 However, by the end of the 1 980s challenges to
PNDC government had considerably diminished and the revolutionary
system of justice that did not follow accepted norms of due process,
inflicted harsh punishments and was sullied by scandals involving corrup-
tion of its officers and improper state intervention in its proceedings had
become a major liabilicy to a government that wanted to be seen as stable
and responsible.
The result was that when the debate over the constitution for the Fourth
Republic began in 1991 the Public Tribunals were more and more forced
on the defensive. The Board of Public Tribunals, meeting in Bolgatanga
123. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 11-16 November 1991.
124. WestAfrica, 30 March-5 April 1992.
125. Agyekum had been Chairman of the Board of Public Tribunals from 1982-1986.
126. West Africa, 18-24 February 1991. The case involved the two directors of Country
Home Foods Product Limited who were charged with fraudulently selling land. They were
to appear before Mr Agyekum's tribunal but appealed successfully to the PNDC Secretary,
Mr Ato Dadzie, for bail and for a transfer of their case to another tribunal. 'For those who
Care to Know', People's Daily Graphic, 13 April 1991. Agyekum accused the latter of
intervening on the side of a Ghanaian who was rich, powerful, and a former schoolmate.
WestAfrica, 25-31 March 1991.
127. K. Attafuah, 'Criminal justice policy', p. 339; and Kwesi Jonah, 'Rawling's revolution:
Two years after', Xournal of African Marxists, 5 February 1984, p. 29.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS
219

in November 1991, 'rejected the proposals to abolish the National Public

Tribunals' that were then being mooted in the Consultative Assembly.l28
They defended the competency of the Tribunals' personnel, an issue that
had always been sensitive, but had become even more so as the 'disgraceful
performance' of some of those who served on the Tribunals had received
extensive press coverage.l29 The Government press also sought to defend
the 'honourable and dedicated people' who served the Public Tribunal
system, but conceded that there were 'problems'.l30 Revealingly, an
editorial in the Ghanaian Times recognized that their problems stemmed
from a lack of supervision and direction. For too long the system had
been the responsibility of 'an already over-loaded Secretary of State'. In a
rather back-handed fashion, the editorial concluded that those who 'valued
the positive achievements of the Public Tribunals . . . [could] at least be
thankful that from 1993, they [would] come under a ChiefJustice who, on
his perforlllance so far, means business in shaking up the very defects-in the
system which necessitated the formation of the Tribunals'.l3l
However, reflective of how much Tribunal personnel felt threatened by
the direction the debate in the Consultative Assembly was taking, the most
extensive public defence of the Public Tribunal system came from the
Chairman of the National Appeals and Review Tribunals, Kwaku Addo
Aikins. Speaking at the ninth conference of the Officers of the Board of
Public Tribunals in November 1992, he argued that 'modern sophisticated
crimes . . . made it indefensible for us to confine ourselves to traditional
procedures and modes of trial practice in the past'.132 Specifically he
singled out international crimes like drug and arms trafficking, as well as
toxic waste dumping, corporate frauds, computer related frauds, secret
accumulation of resources for the funding of criminal operations like
terrorism, political assassination, and protecting international criminals.
With the exception of a modest role in prosecuting drug trafficking, it is
hard to imagine how the Tribunals with their very limited resources could
possibly have functioned in the way that Addo Aikins suggested. Neither
was it likely that the government, now seeking to attract foreign and local
investment, would have wanted to expand the role of the Tribunals in a
way that Addo Aikins conceded could very easily 'scare' investors.
In addition, the 'scare' quality of the Tribunals which had made it
possible for them to operate with dispatch was at that time unravelling.
As it became obvious that they were going to be absorbed into the regular
court system and be forced to adopt 'corresponding procedures, principles
and rules' they had become more and more subject to the 'footdragging'
128. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 1 1-16 November 1991.
129. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 1 1-16 November 1991.
130. Ghanaian Times, 21 May 1992.
131. Ghanaian Times, 12 May 1992.
132. Ghanaian Times, 20 November 1992.

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 220 AFRICAN AFPAIRS

and 'sheer incompetence7 that characterized the regular courts

According to an article in The Ghanaian Chronicle, the police and pros-
ecutors were most to blame for the 'delays' that contributed to 'wh
Tribunals [did not] function'.l33 Undoubtedly well publicized failures to
prosecute cases with political implications also contributed to underminin
moral and efficiency.
Perhaps most symptomatic of just how much the Tribunal system was
unravelling was the highly publicized failure of the Accra Public Tribuna
to get Professor Adu Boahen, the presidential candidate of the New
Patriotic Party (NPP), to appear as a witness in the 'Farighan bombings'
trial.l34 However, he indicated his willingness to testify if the case was
brought before a traditional court in which he had much more
confidence. He cited the recent conflict between Mr George Agyekum
and Mr Ato Dadzie as an indication of just how much the Public Tribunal
system lacked integrity.l35 The expiration of the Tribunals' authority on
7 January 1993 to hear anything but partially heard cases, gave Boahen an
his fellow defendant, Kwesi Pratt, interim General Secretary of the Popular
Party for Democracy and Development (PPDD), firther opportunity to
challenge the Public Tribunal's right to hear what had now become a
contempt case.l36 They argued that it was not a partially heard case and
forced the Supreme Court to rule on the issue.l37 With so much
uncertainty as to the Tribunal's jurisdiction, neither Boahen nor Pratt
showed much concern for the authority of the Tribunal, and the case
against those charged with the 'Farighan bombing' went on without them
serving as witnesses.l38
Even in this judgment the diminished stature of the Tribunals was
evident. No lives had been lost in the bombings, but this was due more to
luck chan anything else. Nevertheless, the sentences that the Tribunal
passed down were extremely light in contrast to those of the past where
human life had been threatened. So much was this so that the Ghanaian
Times attacked the verdict in an editorial on the grounds that the sentences
had been too mild, and raised the prospect of a prosecution appeal against

133. The Ghanaian Chronicle, March 29-4 April 1993.

134. Shortly after the 1992 elections three bombs exploded in Accra and Tema. Four
people were charged with conspiracy, abetment of crime and causing unlawful damage to
public buildings. Three others were tried in absentia. In varying degrees they were all
found guilty West Afica, 8-14 March 1 993.
135. West Africa., 28 December-l O January 1993.
136. Adding to the Tribunal's difficulties, the defendants' lawyers argued that PNDC law 78
that had set up the Public Tribunals had not specified contempt as a triable offence.
Ghanaian Times, 23 December 1992.
137. Ghanaian Times:, 28 January 1994.
138. True to form, the Supreme Court took so long to rule on which court should hear the
contempt case that by the time it did rule that Public Tribunals were about to pass out of
existence. By default the case ended up in the Accra High Court. Ghanaian Times, 13 July
1 993

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 221

the outcome of the trial.139 Undoubtedly there would have been a state
appeal in the past, when there were provisions for such appeal to the
Appeal Tribunal, but with only a few months left for the Tribunals to
complete partially heard cases there was no way that this could happen.
Neither were the traditional courts likely to hear this case for by doing so
they would have appeared guilty of what the Bar Association had seen as
one of the major faults of the Tribunal system: double jeopardy. In many
respects the case reflected just how much the Ghanaian legal system was
. . .

Once agam cnangmg.

Neither was it possible for the Tribunal system to fade away witho
more nasty public scandal. In June 1993 the work of the Appellate and
Review Tribunal came to a halt when the government suspended its
Chairman, Mr Addo Aikins. The Ghanaian Chronicle speculated that he
might have 'stepped on toes', and that officials in the PNDC were annoyed
at his ruling in a recent appeal case that had involved the sale of
property. Aikins had sought to restore this property, and in doing so
The Ghanaian Chronicle, suggested that he had uncovered 'the apparent
fraud of certain officials in respect to the management and sale ofu this
property. 140 On the other hand The Ghanaian Democrat, a weekly that was
the mouthpiece for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), came out
with a blistering set of ad hominem attacks on Aikins that effectively ruined
whatever reputation for integrity Tribunal personnel might still have
enjoyed.l4l He was accused of having obtained goods on credit without
paying for them. He had failed to pay back loans. He was in serious
debt on account of living beyond his means, had used public property
recklessly, crashing 'not less than eleven vehicles since 1982', and finally he
had gone through four divorces 'for lack of maintenance of the wives'.l42
Altogether this was seen as representing 'misconduct and irresponsibility
unbefitting the status of a judicial officer'.l43
The wheel had obviously turned full circle. From being upholders of
the 'revolutionary' goals of the 'Holy War', the Tribunals had become
obstacles on the road to the new order. Few people were willing to defend
them from the charge that they had 'tended to subvert the course of
justice'. There were just too many examples to prove that this was
so. The considerable public scrutiny under which the Tribunals had
operated provided more than enough grist for this mill. The memory of
their faults, and the scandals in which their personnel had been involved far
outweighed whatever their contribution might have been. By comparison,
in the waning years of PNDC rule the regular courts had been able to avoid
139. WestAfrica, 8-14 March 1993.
140. The Ghanaian Chronicle, 20 June 1993.
141. The NDC was the PNDC transformed into a political party, and then the ruling party.
142. 'Why Aikins was sent home'. The Ghanaian Democrat, 21-27 June 1993.
143. The Ghanaian Democrat, 21-27 June 1993.

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222 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

the limelight far more successfully. Even the government's attitude to the
Ghana Bar Association had mellowed. Ironically the Public Tribunals'
determination to provide quick and impartial justice had also proved to be
their undoing. The traditional courts with their delays, adjournments and
complex technicalities were in the long run far less threatening to executive
power than a judicial system that moved more swiftly and had to be
responsive to public opinion. Controlling public institutions was of
considerable importance to the PNDC as Ghana moved towards demo-
cratic government at the end of the 1 980s. Joseph Ayee has suggested that
the attempt to decentralise local government with the three-phased district
assembly elections in 1988 and 1989 were as much an attempt 'to
legitimize the power base of the PNDC', as it was 'to tighten its grip on
regional and local institutions for the perpetuation of its position in
power'.l44 Nevertheless, even by reserving the right to nominate a third
of the membership of the District Assemblies and appointing civil servants
as their secretaries, there were still embarrassing conflicts and struggles
between the disparate members of these bodies.145 Even though insti-
tutionalizing the Public Tribunals was never complete, nevertheless they
remained similarly unpredictable. Unlike the District Assemblies that
served the important role of providing the PNDC with a local base in the
up-coming elections, and also in helping to implement the provisions of
the Economic Recovery Programme, the Public Tribunals had begun to
challenge the PNDC's original conception of judicial power. As Samuel
Gyandoh has argued Ghana's 'new political elite' had seen the 'courts only
as a reliable and effective instrument for carrying out government
policy'.l46 Perhaps in the long run the embarrassing expose of govern-
ment interference in the affairs of the Public Tribunals in the 1 990s will be
seen as important evidence that the Ghana experiment in revolutionary
justice was in the long run ironically more threatened by fairly high
standards of dispatch and judicial integrity than by being simply
instruments of PNDC dominance.
On the other hand if we are able to conclude that this experiment in
revolutionary justice did indeed play a crucial role in preventing Ghana
from lapsing into the violence and anarchy that has characterized so many
recent military interventions in Africa, clearly the short term significance of
the Public Tribunal system has been much more modest. In contrast to
the prominence of these Tribunals in the past, their recent absorption into
the overall court system has passed almost without notice in the Ghanaian
press. As a further indication of the lowered standing of the Tribunals in

144. J. R. Ayee, 'Decentralisation and local government under the PNDC', in Ghana Under
PNDC Rule, p. 130.
145. Undoubtedly one of the most contentious issues was the question of local taxation.
Kofi Kasah, 'Burdensome taxes', WestAfrica 4-10 September 1989.
146. S. Gyandoh, 'Tinkeringwiththe criminal justice system', p. 1165.

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 GHANA'S PUBLIC TRIBUNALS 223

the regular court system, finding sufficient Regional Tribunal Chairmen

has also proved to be difficult. According to a recent report by the Judicial
Secretary in the Daily Graphic, the Judicial Service requires twency-five
Regional Tribunal Chairmen.l47 It will not be easy to fill these positions
with capable people since, according to the Judicial Secretary, 'lawyers of
good standing want to join the Appeal Courts of the Supreme Court'.l48
Staffing the lower echelons of the bench has been a chronic problem for the
Ghanaian Judicial Service, and it clearly has contributed to the glacial pace
at which Ghanaian justice has all too often moved. Recent complaints by
Chief Justice Philip Archer about 'the present chaos in the courts' on
account of a 'legal system' that 'was dilatory, time-consuming and expen-
sive' indicate how easy it has been to slip back into the less challenging ways
of the past. 149 As Samuel Gyandoh has suggested, 'the legal profession in
common law Africa must become involved in the creative modernization of
the legal process in order to forestall the often destructive influence of
revolutionary changes'.l50 In retrospect perhaps the most telling criticism
of Ghana's experiment in revolutionary justice will be that by being
'rejectionist' it postponed the reforms that are still necessary.

147. 'Shortage of judges', Daily Graphic, 28 October 1995.

148. Daily Graphic, 28 October 1995.
149. West Africa, 1 0-1 6 October 1 994.
150. S. Gyandoh, 'Tinkering with the criminal justice system', p. 1172.

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