Check this bizarre circuit court judgement
On December 20, 2011, the Daily Graphic, published an article of mine titled ‘The law, the ass, the truth’, in which I said that one might lose a case in court not because he had no case, or win a case not because he had a genuine case.
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He may win or lose because, among various reasons, the judge may have decided to consider other factors than the merit of the case itself, thereby making the law a real ass.
In another article of October 10, 2013 in the Daily Graphic titled ‘Blame it on the Educated African’, I said we should blame the woes of Africa and Ghana, in particular, on the educated African who decides to use his education to outwit the innocent illiterates or ignorant majority.
This educated African may be a politician, a medical doctor, a teacher, a journalist, a policeman, a lawyer, a judge or any other educated person or professional. Subsequent events have proved these two articles just right.
Unless the media reportage was inaccurate, then the case I am describing is really bizarre and is another example of the points raised in the said articles. On page three of the Ghanaian Times of Saturday, August 30, 2014, a story goes with the headline ‘Judge frees accused…who pleaded guilty to defilement’. The details are that a 39-year-old illegal miner, Adu, defiled and impregnated a primary five girl. The girl’s mother, Theresa Bonful, took the case to court.
The accused admitted and pleaded guilty. The mother and police had claimed the child was 13 years old but her National Health Insurance card indicated an age of 12. The judge, Nana Kwame Ohene Essel of Tarkwa Circuit Court, decided that the ‘conflicting’ age meant the mother and police had failed to prove the age of the child whose age was uncertain and hence for lack of evidence, he had decided to free the accused. He subsequently acquitted and discharged the accused. The mother naturally broke down for this injustice.
As said earlier, the reportage could have been highly inaccurate, in which case the judge must come out to explain. Otherwise the society and appropriate institutions must take this up. The Attorney-General, Legal Council, Ghana Bar Association, Gender, Children and Social Protection Ministry, Child Rights Activists, Legal Aid and concerned lawyers and individuals in the society must take the matter up.
Posterity will not forgive us if we allow this judgement to stand. I would even not be surprised that the girl may be 13 years alright but the card may have been registered a year earlier when she was 12, so where is the conflict and uncertainty in age? Even if there was really a conflict, does it really matter whether the victim is 12 or 13?
The fact still remains that the girl is a minor and there has been a defilement which the accused had admitted to. Was the issue at court about the age of the child or the fact of defilement? This is obviously a bizarre judgement for which the judge must not be allowed to go scot-free – if the facts are as recounted by the paper. I am waiting to hear that somebody has stood up for justice for this girl.