The Supreme Court Complex

I took a break from my work with the Human Rights Advocacy Centre to spend the morning with Godwin Gyamfi, a former solicitor-advocate in England’s Crown Prosecution Service, now practicing in Accra.

We met outside Fast Track Court 5, in the Supreme Court complex; a far grander building than the Gender-Based Violence Court I had recently visited (see previous post). The courtrooms themselves also bear a much stronger resemblance to courtrooms at home than the shed like structure that is the gender-violence court. The complex houses the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Human Rights Court, the High Court, the Commercial Court, various criminal courts and the Financial and Economic Court. Unlike during my trip to the Gender-Based Violence Court, here I saw lawyers buzzing around in robes. Godwin even wore his wig (though he was the only person I saw doing so). Apparently wigs and gowns are mandatory courtroom dress, but this is routinely ignored.

The Fast Track Court, a criminal court, doesn’t quite live up to its name. Godwin was preparing for a murder trial here. His client, the accused, has been remanded in custody awaiting trial for the past 12 years. If he is found not guilty it is very unlikely he will receive any compensation from the state. This is alarming for many reasons. The chances of securing a conviction, and thus securing justice for the victim, surely decline as time goes on. Memories fade, witnesses move away or die, and a trial can collapse. More importantly, imprisoning someone on remand for such a lengthy time – a sentence in itself – makes a mockery of the presumption of innocence and efforts to ensure a fair trial.

Delay is the key reason for prisoners being remanded for such a long time. Hearings, as described in my last post, take place in a piecemeal fashion. It can take a long time for a courtroom to become available, highlighting a key problem with resources and capacity in the Ghanaian justice system. When a prisoner is placed on remand, the court issues a warrant of commitment, which authorises the prison to hold the person until their next court date. A court can only adjourn the case for 14 clear days while the person is in custody (Criminal Procedure Code 1960 (Act 30), ss. 169(2) and 186). This means that the warrant of commitment expires 14 days after the accused person is placed on remand. The reasoning for this is to ensure that prisoners are not forgotten, and that remand prisoners’ cases are rightly prioritised. However, in reality, remand prisoners are often held for months or years between court appearances on expired warrants.

I spoke to Godwin about other aspects of his practise. He described how moving from practise in the UK to practise in Ghana took some adjustment. Although the law and procedure is often the same, the ways in which courts work are very different. He noted that the piecemeal fashion of conducting trials, referred to in my last post, can be very frustrating and make it more difficult to build the crescendo of a case. He also described having to get used to the very different manner in which many advocates address each other and, indeed, the judge.

I noticed this in the case I shadowed in the Financial and Economic Court. The case concerned a shipping dispute, but at times it was difficult to hear what was going on as the various advocates in the case talked over one another. The judge looked very frustrated with one advocate in particular, who refused to take his cue from the judge and insisted on continuing even after the judge had said he understood the point and wanted to move on. I could understand Godwin’s frustrations.