Lawlessness Within Court Premises

Yesterday a reporter from one of the major media establishments was physically attacked by a relative of a suspect in the Ruby cocaine saga when he went to cover the court proceedings of the case.

It was a scene too remote from a civilised society to which we claim to belong. It took place and continues to do so within the cradle of justice in the nation's capital with no intervention from the many security agents—uniformed and plain-clothed—who mill around the court premises, some of them with no specific schedule.

Alhaji Dawood's case in particular drew so many national security and Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) agents and policemen who folded their arms as the reporter was heckled and roughened. It was as if the unfolding stupidity from the bunch of good-for-nothing persons who screamed at the top of their voices as though they were in a fish market by the beach was a normal phenomenon with the court premises.

The physical and verbal attacks on journalists by relatives of suspects at the courts when especially high profile criminal cases are heard, has gained a disturbing notoriety.

The situation is so bad that when journalists are assigned to cover especially such cases, it is as if they were being sent to hell or the frontline of a raging war.

There is no media establishment worth its salt whose personnel have not been manhandled at the courts by irate family members of suspects. In some cases, these reporters or photographers have suffered injuries, with nobody arrested for the avoidable ordeals.

DAILY GUIDE has a litany of evidences about our reporters and photographers being unjustifiably manhandled sometimes by security agents who should know better the implications of such crude and rustic conduct.

Unfortunately, there is abundance of evidence to prove that those who unleash their uncontrollable angst on innocent journalists simply doing their work would always go scot free. Shouldn't they therefore be emboldened to continue to misconduct themselves even within the premises of courts where they should at least pretend to be law-abiding and decent persons in society even if they are the opposite of such qualities?

A few weeks ago, a television cameraman was brutally assaulted when the case of Dr. Sulley Qabass came up for hearing in court.

DAILY GUIDE photographer Gifty Lawson was once upon a time manhandled by some security agents as did some Prison Service warders to one of our reporters. We have had enough of the nonsense even as the Ghana Journalists' Association (GJA) looks on sheepishly.

Society would suffer a dangerous void when there is total media blackout and the activities of departments of state are confined to their four walls. Shouldn't the relevant organs of state, especially the judiciary and the law enforcement agencies, therefore render us the necessary recognition by reversing this crude reaction from a section of the public when we are doing our work? We are not asking for too much under the circumstances. Are we?