Judges, magistrate shouldn’t allow clerks extend remand periods – Justice Sir Dennis Adjei
“It is only judges and magistrates who have the power to remand but if we allow our court clerks to extend dates, it means that we are giving judicial power to them.”
A Justice of the Court of Appeal and the Director of the Judicial Training Institute, Justice Sir Dennis Adjei has admonished magistrates, and judges against the practice of allowing their clerks to extend remand periods of accused persons.
He notes that mostly when accused persons are remanded for 14 days and it matures and are thus brought to court and the court is not sitting, clerks gives dates which are unlawful.
Justice Adjei maintained that it is only the magistrates and Judges who have the power to remand thus the creeping practice of allowing clerks to extend remand dates inadvertently transfers to them judicial power which can be blamed as responsible for the phenomenon whereby accused persons are kept on remand for unusually long periods.
“It is only judges and magistrates who have the power to remand but if we allow our court clerks to extend dates, it means that we are giving judicial power to them.”
He made this known at a workshop for Judges on the topic; “Understanding the Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 (Act 1019); The Role of Judges in health and rights-based best practices to handling people who use drugs in the implementation of the Act.”
Further to the above, Justice Sir Adjei called on magistrates and judges to keep track of accused persons remanded in order for their rights not to be unduly violated. Specifically, he suggested keeping these records in diaries in order for judges to remember persons they have remanded in order to help rid our prisons of congestion.
The workshop was organized by the POS Foundation and the Judicial Training Institute in partnership with the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) and the Ghana chapter of the West Africa Drug Policy Network (WADPN).
