President assents to Plea Bargaining Act, 2022 (Act 1079)
Per the Act1079 a person charged with a criminal offence may at the time before judgment, negotiate with the Attorney General for a plea agreement to reduce an offence charged to a lesser offence or to withdraw a charge against an accused person.
The President, Nana Akufo-Addo on Friday, July 22, 2022, assented to the amended Criminal and other Offences(Procedure) Act 1960(Act 30) to provide for plea bargaining in the administration of criminal justice.
The new Act titled Criminal and other Offences (Procedure) (Amendment) Act, 2022 (Act 1079) focuses on Plea Bargaining.
This comes about a month after Parliament passed the bill sponsored by the Attorney General to incorporate plea bargaining into Ghana’s justice system.
Announcing in a statement dated July 26, 2022, Attorney-General Godfred Dame indicated that training programmes will be organised for judges, prosecutors in the Office of the Attorney General, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Prisons Service, and other stakeholders in the legal profession before the law takes its full implementation.
“I respectfully inform the general public that in order to ensure a sound and efficient application of the law, a series of training programmes will be organised for judges, prosecutors in the Office of Attorney General, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Prisons Service and other stakeholders in the legal profession before the law is fully implemented,” the AG statement noted.
As it pertains to other jurisdictions, plea bargaining allows an accused person to relinquish his or her rights to go full trial in a criminal proceeding in exchange for some benefits.
Even though there existed some few instances where plea bargaining existed for very few offences like Subsections (2) and (3) of Section 239 of Act 30, Section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993(Act 459), Act 959, and the Narcotics Control Commission Act, 2020(Act 1019), majority of offences under Ghana’s criminal jurisdiction are generally excluded from plea bargaining.
Per the Act1079 a person charged with a criminal offence may at the time before judgment, negotiate with the Attorney General for a plea agreement to reduce an offence charged to a lesser offence or to withdraw a charge against an accused person.
Additionally, plea bargaining may provide for a sentence or a range of sentences to be recommended to the court; the payment by the accused person of compensation to a victim of the offence or the making of restitution by the accused person.
The Act however creates exceptions to plea negotiations for charges of high treason, high crime, rape, defilement, genocide, robbery, kidnapping, murder, attempted murder, abduction, piracy, hijacking and an offence related to public elections.
Authorization of Plea bargaining
The Attorney General may by notice in writing authorize a prosecutor or a class of prosecution to conduct plea bargaining in respect of a specified matter.
Also, a plea agreement cannot be concluded by a prosecutor who is not an officer of the Office of the Attorney General without the consent of the AG.
