By As of Friday, April 26, 2024, the population of the Kumasi Central Prison has soared to nearly 1,800, greatly surpassing its capacity of 600 inmate spaces.
This overcrowding issue is mirrored in prisons nationwide, prompting concern from judges, legal professionals, prison authorities, and other stakeholders. The overcrowded conditions often lead to violations of the rights of both incarcerated and remanded prisoners.
In 2008, Ghana took a significant step to address this issue with the introduction of the Justice for All Program. This initiative aims to expedite the adjudication of cases involving remanded prisoners. It includes the establishment of mobile in-prison courts providing free legal services to such inmates.
Despite the strides made by this initiative, it still falls short of ensuring adequate justice delivery.
Justice Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei, a court of appeal judge and a judge of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, emphasized the challenges stemming from the limited number of lawyers. They struggle to keep up with the increasing number of prisoners, exacerbating the situation.
He stressed the importance of paralegal services in supporting lawyers to enhance justice delivery.
“It is a must that any person who is charged by a court must be represented by a lawyer, the African court has given several decisions against some countries such as Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, and Rwanda, the argument they put up is that we don’t have enough lawyers to meet the demands of accused persons. We must establish paralegal services in the country to support them. Some people languish in jail because they don’t have lawyers.”
These comments were shared during a workshop for justice sector actors focusing on access to legal aid and the inauguration of a paralegal office, organized by the POS Foundation with sponsorship from GIZ in Kumasi.
The POS Foundation is a prominent human rights civil society organization in Ghana. Over the years, it has collaborated with the Ghana Prisons Service to effectively pilot the in-person paralegal program at Nsawam Medium Security Prison in 2018.
