Law Reform Commission Makes Major Recommendations - For New Laws, Amendments To Existing Ones

Mr Martin Amidu, Attorney General and Minister of Justice addressing the press in Accra

The Law Reform Commission has prepared and made amendment to over 50 laws for consideration and passage into law by Parliament.

They include the Rent Bill, the Apprenticeship Law, Aged Care Policy, Trust and Non-Profit Civil Society Organisation Bill, Property Right and Spouses Bill, among others.

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin Amidu, who announced this at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday, said more than 50 laws and various amendments to criminal offences were based on the commission’s work.

He said during the year the commission completed work on Restorative Justice Alternatives to Custodial Sentences Report and this included recommendations on the decongestion of the prisons, introduction of new sentencing procedures and review of the Prisons Decrees, among others.

He said work on the Minerals and and Mining Act was almost completed and this hoped to take care of loopholes in the current law especially as it related to alternative livelihood, the environment and community concerns.

“New topics for the review of Contract Law and the Law of Torts are to take cognisance of emerging issues on oil and gas. The review of the criminal injury compensation law is also to address issues of compensation for victims of injuries,” the minister said.

He said the ministry had been bedeviled with a myriad of challenges like inadequate budgetary allocation, delay in the release of budgetary allocation, inadequate staff, difficulty in securing legal practitioners to work on legal aid cases and an outdated Legal Aid Scheme Act.

He said the Attorney General was legally responsible for legal matters relating to the executive power of the state and was thus responsible for the initiation and conduct of all prosecution of criminal offences in the name of the republic and the institution and conduct of civil proceedings on behalf of the state.

He said the office of the Solicitor-General, which is the principal legal advisor to the government particularly in the initiation, conduct and defence of all civil litigations on behalf of the state, had only 50 attorneys comprising the Solicitor General, five Chief State Attorneys, five Principal State Attorneys, six Senior State Attorneys , 11 State Attorneys and 22 Assistant State Attorneys.

He said in the year under review the civil division handled 189 new cases which were initiated by the public against various ministries and departments of state, out of which 11 were Supreme Court cases, 169 High Court cases , seven Circuit Court cases and two being District Court cases.

Mr Amidu said the division also settled several claims against the state in which the state did not have a defence and some of these cases ranged from accidents involving MDAs, actions arising out of breach of contract, actions in relation to wrongful dismissal and actions arising out of tortuous acts of state officials.

According to the Attorney General, there were numerous judgement debts against the government, some dating back to the last decade, and a conservative estimate of the sum being claimed against the government including compensation amounted to GH¢146 million.

He said there were uncountable number of land compensation cases pending, adding that it made sense that once land was compulsorily acquired by the government, fair and adequate compensation was paid to the owners in accordance with the constitution.

He stated that the general crime situation in the country had reduced significantly with the reduction of cases handled by the Public Prosecution Division for the period of June, 2010 to July, 2011.

He said robbery cases dropped from 151 in 2010 to 76 in 2011, narcotics from 87 to 45, murder 59 to 45, rape 31 to 16, defilement from 15 to 3, MTTU from 277 to 192, motions from 619 to 410 and petitions from 339 to 281.

The Attorney-General said the Justice for all Programme, an initiative to decongest the nation’s prisons of remand prisoners, had dealt with 245 cases from July 29, 2011 to August 1, 2011 and out of these 71 were discharged, 75 were granted bail, nine were convicted and 90 applications were either refused, withdrawn or adjourned to a later date.

He said at the Copyright Office, a total of 347 works had been registered and automated with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) from January to date and one case out of 10 cases received by the office this year had been settled.

He said lack of specialised knowledge to fight piracy had been one of the greatest challenges facing the office and called for the need to establish a copyright tribunal and a National Folklore Board and the reintroduction of security devices to distinguish genuine musical and audiovisual works from pirated ones.

The minster said in 2010, the Registrar General’s Department registered 43,482 businesses and the breakdown were as follows: limited liability companies, 13,752; business names, 25,095; partnerships, 226; external companies, 93; companies limited by guarantee, 3,981; and subsidiary business names, 335.

He said the department also received 22 and 2,583 applications for patent and trade mark registration respectively, adding that a total of 2,983 marriages were celebrated and registered by the department during 2010.

He gave an assurance that despite great challenges ahead, the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice would render to the good people of Ghana legal services of professional nature based on transparency and accountability.