Committee: Human Rights Council
Topic: Human Rights Violations Relating to the Courts, Police, and the Government
Country: Ghana
Delegate: Carinna Kroll
There have been countless violations against human rights in Ghana over the past years and it can be seen that there is a high concentration of these violations within the government of Ghana. According to the Ghana 2016 Human Rights Report there have been violations pertaining to the “arbitrary deprivation of life and other unlawful or politically motivated killings,” the “roll of police and security apparatus,” and the “denial of fair public trial.”
Examples of arbitrary deprivation of life and other unlawful or politically motivated killings include one instance from May of 2016 in the city of Kumasi, Ghana. The situation involved police officers beating a suspect to death while using tasers and the butts of their guns to assault the suspect, but an autopsy of the victim’s body showed that they had died of natural causes.
In another case of serious human rights violations, the role of police and security apparatus was investigated in 2016 by the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Unit (PIPS). Before the investigation started it was clearly known that there were high rates of brutality, negligence, corruption, and impunity in the police departments. There were also countless reports in the Ghana 2016 Human Rights Report that suggested that the police beat, raped, and abused suspects and other citizens as well as collaborated with criminals and wrongfully arrested citizens in exchange for bribes from angry business associates of those detained by police. The PIPS investigation revealed that over 900 complaints were filed, yet only 25 were completely solved and the other 749 were still under investigation. They also found that there were over 200 reports of unprofessional handling of cases, 145 reports with undue delay of investigation, 109 reports of unfair treatment, 52 reports of police brutality, and 50 reports of unlawful arrest and detention. By August of 2016, 66 officers were dismissed but none of them were prosecuted criminally.
Ghana’s known laws and constitution grant promise for an independent judiciary when presenting a case although their judicial system is known for its unlawful influence and corruption. It has been noted in the Ghana 2016 Human Rights Report that judicial officials have accepted bribes to “expedite or postpone cases, or to ‘lose’ records.” In order to further look into these accusations, a chief justice created a five member committee headed by a Supreme Court judge. By the end of the investigation, 12 High Court judges, 22 lower court judges, and 19 members of the judicial services staff were dismissed but no charges or criminal proceedings were brought about to those that were involved.
Even though the investigations into these human rights violations have come up with some ideas for how to handle the problems, this doesn’t mean that they were completely fixed. An article written by the New York Times in May of 2017 brought up how governmental corruption is still prominent in the country of Ghana today. In relation to the violation against the right to a fair trial, in order to relieve the congestion and backup of the courts and increase judicial efficiency, alternate dispute resolution (ADR) procedures were created and used to train professional mediators. Despite these plans, it is not uncommon for trials to go on for years.
References
Sagoe-Moses, L. E. (2017, May 25). How to Unmask Corruption in Ghana. New York Times. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from
United States Department of State. (2016) Ghana 2016 Human Rights Report
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from