Make social media breaches universal crimes – Justice Sir Dennis Adjei to gov't

Professor Justice Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei, Judge of the African Court, has recommended the enactment of laws in Ghana to make some of the offences committed on social media universal crimes.

“If it is a universal offence, irrespective of where it is committed, you can be arrested and prosecuted.

The state should also lobby for treaties that will make some of the offences on disclosure of information on national security, protection of health and morals and territorial integrity or public safety extraditable, to enable Ghanaians abroad who openly commit those offences repatriated to Ghana to face prosecution”, he suggested, at a public lecture in Kumasi.

The lecture was organized by the Law Faculty of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), as part of the 5^th Eminent Legal Scholars and Law Public Lecture Series,

Prof. Justice Sir Adjei's lecture was delivered on the topic “Freedom of Expression and its Legal Consequences in the Era of Social Media."

He said because Ghana did not have these laws, people have taken advantage and were causing mayhem and damaging the hard-earned reputation of others.

Prof. Justice Sir Adjei, who is also a Justice of the Court of Appeal in Ghana, called on the social media creators to help the police track these offenders.

He said since social media had come to stay with its challenges, technologies should be further developed to expose those who used social media platforms in complete disregard of laws, to be dealt with lawfully.

According to him, the purpose for introducing social media to share information and educate people had been abused as people used the platforms to defame and malign others and were not sued for a tort of defamation because these people provided false identities.

He said some of the people who are outside the jurisdiction of the court undermined the authority and impartiality of the court with impunity as the court did not have jurisdiction to deal with them.

He said these days information on national security, national interest, prevention of crime and disorder, protection of health or morals that could be protected was posted on social media to undermine the security of the state but those involved could not be brought to Ghana to be prosecuted as they were not a universal nor connectable offenses.

Prof. Justice Sir Adjei, mentioned fake news and cyberbullying as some of the serious consequences of social media, adding that, cyber-bullying remained a serious illegal effect on social media on the contemporary world and was an upfront to freedom of expression.

GNA