allAfrica.com: Ghana: The Scourge of Vigilante Justice (Page 1 of 1)

It is better for a criminal person to walk free in a trial than to jail an innocent person. Justice Wendell Oliver Holmes Somewhere last year, The Statesman conducted a survey in all the regional capitals and some district capitals in the country. The survey revealed a high level of support amongst Ghanaians for mob justice - the practice of citizens taking the law into their own hands to instantly punish suspected criminals, especially thieves.

Instant justice or vigilant justice consists in the activities of individuals who upon suspicion of a violation, purport to circumvent, and does circumvent the objective criteria for determining such violation by substituting their own notion of what they consider as punishment for that of authorities exclusively mandated by law to determine the violation.

Gradually, Ghana is gaining notoriety in handling instant justice to criminal suspects like pick-pockets, armed robbers etc. It appears no single day goes off in the country without a story on mob justice been reported in the media.

Mob justice has been in this country dawn before dinosaurs got extinct from the surface of the earth. We only hear of government officials decrying this obnoxious act without any matched effort to nip it in the bud.

In his presentation on "Instant Justice, the Criminal Justice System and Human Rights in Ghana" Prof. Ken Attafuah, a renowned criminologist pointed out that the incidence of instant justice showed a general lack of public confidence in the country's capacity to be "decent in punishing wrongdoing decisively" and in accordance with the rule of law."

He said instant justice depicted the Ghanaian society to the rest of the world as "both primitive and barbaric" while announcing that our criminal justice system, that included the police, the courts and the prison service, are "fragile, incompetent and putrid".

People in this country have become like the Pharisees who claimed to have caught a lady in 'the act of adultery' and yelled that Mosaic Law requires that she is stoned to death. Jesus responded to the demands of the Pharisee and said that 'he who is without sin let him cast the first stone'. Jesus was not condoning the act of adultery rather he was mad about the way the people had only selected the women to be killed but have left the man-the partner in the adultery to go free.

KILLING OF THE INNOCENT

There are many times where innocent people have become victim of vigilante justice. Last year, it came out that a third year BSc Physics student (first class division) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) was mistaken as thief and beaten to death by some vigilante group in Tema. Another student from a second cycle institution got hay fever and was onboard a public transport when he got down from the car; He then started running from the car.

Some observers mistook him for a thief and delivered 'justice on him'. He died instantly. In fact the catalogues of such cases are many.

I do not want to pretend not to be aware of the pain and loss whenever one is robbed or attacked by criminals. As someone who has been robbed before I understand the hurt and the pain to have your property stolen or attacked by an armed robber.

It is not easy to tell the victim of theft or robbery to 'keep cool'. But there is a law. No single person can decide to put the law in his or her own hands and do whatever he/she thinks is right. Perhaps, vigilante justice has been on the ascendancy in the country due to the way the police and the court handle such cases whenever they are brought before them.

One trader at the Kumasi- Kejetia told me that whenever they apprehend a thief they do not make bones about sending him or her to the Central Police Station. He continued by saying that the police would always make him or her go free. In stead, they kill him instantly. What a callous act?

What that trader said might be true. When people are called to give witness to cases, they are reluctant in doing so. And how do we expect the police to succeed in having these suspected criminals put before bar when people with evidence do not want to come and testify? So until, people with incriminating evidence decide to give witness we should not expect even hardcore armed robbers in jail.

ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ROBBERY OR THEFT

There is a saying that laws in Ghana are like cobwebs which can only attract light weight animals like insects not like elephants and tigers. If someone is put before a court for stealing a flock of sheep, that person can be put into jail for twenty years.

However, when a politician or a big shot, embezzles state funds to the tune of millions of dollars is handed a jail sentence for say three years or more, there is a public agitation against the conviction and sentencing. Our attitude towards lesser crimes like pilfering is disapproval whilst those of higher organised crime like embezzlement of state funds is approval.

Ghanaians shun some offences like armed robbery, theft, etc. When ever someone is caught in this act people decide to let the avalanche of unorthodox punishment flow. It is good that we shun these sorts of vices in the society.

Let us keep the need for pursuing justice. This instinct is good. It is goodness does not lie in the mob bringing justice to the offenders. The goodness lies in bringing the person to the natural justice system where he or she can have the right to defend him or herself.

CONCLUSION

I would like to make this suggestion that parliament passes a law a matter of urgency to decriminalize vigilante justice in the country. Beyond this people who call for 'instant justice' be arrested and put behind bars. It is time to act now or never.

I would like to end with a quotation from Professor Ken Attafuah that "Virtually anyone can easily be 'mistaken' for a criminal and summarily punished,"

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