LADA Institute updates knowledge and skills of 400 police prosecutors nationwide

Tema, Sept 20, GNA - The Law and Development Associates (LADA) Institute, a non-profit organisation, has updated the knowledge and skills of over 400 police prosecutors nationwide through crush and refresher courses.

The initial crush course which lasted for a month, addressed the apparent gap in the education and skills of police officers that are appointed to prosecute crimes on behalf of the Attorney General in court.

Speaking on the sidelines of a two-day refresher course in Tema, Madam Medinat Giwa, Manager of LADA Institute, said the refresher was a follow up to the crush course after mentoring, monitoring and evaluation to address the major challenges they had which included substantive and procedural law.

The prosecutors, drawn from Tema and Accra would be taken through criminal law, Law of evidence, Common errors in criminal trial and Criminal procedure.

She said ninety per cent of the funding of the programme was provided by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the United States' Department of State.

According to her, the LADA institute provided ten per cent of the funding of the programme which drew trainers from the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, the Ghana Law School and the Attorney General's department.

Madam Giwa said the Officers of the AG's department played a crucial role in the training and monitoring programme which was endorsed by the Police Administration.

She said the feedback from Judges indicated that the prosecutors had gained appreciable knowledge of the law which had boosted their moral and confidence and now they no longer get easily intimidated by robust defence lawyers.

According her, the funding would cease in October but was hopeful that some funding from somewhere could be useful as a lot of training needed to be done.

GNA