Hundred police investigators and prosecutors in the Volta and Oti regions have attended a capacity-building and technical presentations training workshop in Hohoe on various legal aspects of their duty.
The topics at the training, organised by the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice, included “Building a Quality Docket for Prosecution”, “Ethics of the Ghana Police Service, Practical Approach to Disclosures”, “Offences Under the New Lands Act, and Approach to Effective Investigation”.
The Volta Regional Head of the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice, Moses Asampoa, said at the opening ceremony last Thursday that court cases were won by the quality of the evidence and not by the quantity.
In other words, he said, the evidence was weighed and not counted.
“Therefore, the investigator must endeavour to go for the best evidence even if it is one item that can prove the guilt of the accused person beyond reasonable doubt,” he added.
Mr Asampoa said doing so required diligence, patience and professionalism on the part of the investigators.
He pointed out that although in most cases police prosecutors and investigators were not trained lawyers, their work hinged on the law.
For that matter, it was unethical, unlawful and unprofessional to fabricate evidence to implicate suspects, Mr Asampoah cautioned.
He maintained that investigators and prosecutors must be honest in dealing with suspects and accused persons.
Mr Asampoah reminded the participants that prosecuting an accused person must be seen as a matter of urgency and nothing must be done to delay the prosecution, saying an accused person was deemed to be innocent until proven guilty or pleaded guilty.
“The fundamental human rights and dignity of suspects and accused persons must be respected during investigation and prosecution, and even after conviction, it is only the right to freedom of movement that is taken away by the sentence imposed, while other rights remain intact,” explained Mr Asampoah.
