This Instant Justice Must Cease

Before the Europeans set foot on this land, our traditional rulers had their own system of dealing with criminals in society. The chiefs served as judges and any one who committed an offence was brought before them for arbitration. The guilty party could in some cases be excommunicated from the traditional area, depending on the gravity of the offence.

With the adoption of the Western system of arbitration, this led to the setting up of the judiciary as a wing of government to deal with disputes – both civil and criminal in nature.

The constitution, which is the ruling document of this country, does not also allow government and individuals to take the law into their own hands. Anyone who does that breaches the law and could be punished for that.

Latest development in this country, however, points to the fact that people are breaching the constitution and taking the law into their own hands by meting out instant justice to those they perceive as criminals.

Reports from Accra and Cape Coast indicate that perceived petty thieves are being lynched without recourse to security agencies or the law courts, who are the appropriate authorities recognized by the constitution to determine whether an accused person is guilty or not of a crime.

The Chronicle sees this development as a dangerous one that must be nipped in the bud as early as possible by the security agencies. We are not condoning crime, but we think petty crimes such as pick pocketing among others should not merit instant justice.

If the situation is not controlled, a time would come when one’s enemy can raise an alarm in public that one has committed a crime, with the aim of having the person lynched.

Surely, no decent society should support the use of instant justice, and that is why we are calling on the security agencies to be up and doing to fight against this negative development. If a person who is not armed commits an offence, the best thing to do is to arrest the person, and then call in the police to use the due process of law.

We are also urging the police to take reported cases of instant justice serious, because the public have often expressed concern that when a suspected thief is arrested and sent to the police, they fail to prosecute them. If this is true, it could motivate the public to mete out instant justice to suspected criminals.

source: chronicle newspaper