Criminalizing drumming, begging doesn’t make sense anymore – GIMPA Law HOD

Dr. Tuffuor quizzed what we seek to gain as a nation by punishing a group of people who may meet in a house to drum just because they have not acquired a license from the District Assembly?

Is allowance instantly strangers applauded

A private Legal Practitioner and head of the GIMPA Law Department, Dr Isidore Tufuor is wondering why in this day and age, a country like Ghana would still have certain offences criminalized and featured in our Criminal statutes.

According to him, even though offences like drumming, noise-making and begging made enough sense at the time they were being criminalized, the same cannot be said of them today.

Speaking on the Law program on Sunday, May 14, 2022, on the decriminalization of petty offences, Dr Tuffuor quizzed what we seek to gain as a nation by punishing a group of people who may meet in a house to drum just because they have not acquired a licence from the District Assembly?

He, therefore, called for these offences to be repealed, removed completely from our statute books unlike the offence of being drunk.

The GIMPA Lecturer indicated that to the extent that one can get drunk and assume a violent nature, go onto the street and even end up harming others and posing a threat to others and society in general, he believes the offence of getting drunk should still remain criminalized.

Furthermore, he touched on the need for a reconsideration of the jail terms imposed on petty offenders especially. Even though he believes some petty offenders should remain criminalized, the punishment regimes for these should be relooked.