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JUSTICE FOR ALL AMIDST COVID 19; GHANA AS A MODEL FOR BEST PRACTICE
By Jonathan Osei Owusu
“The most affected and yet marginalized group of people amidst a Pandemic such as COVID-19 are Prisoners, Orphans and Persons living with Disabilities; they need assistance to survive, Lend a hand”. — Jonathan Osei Owusu (Executive Director, POS Foundation, Facilitator of Justice for All Programme)
Ghana’s Criminal Justice System though admired by many countries within the Sub-Region, faces several challenges which includes alarming prison overcrowding rate in addition to long Pre-trial/Remand cases. The introduction of the Justice For All Program /JFAP (Mobile Special Court Sittings in Prison) to adjudicate remand/pre-trial cases towards prisons decongestion have been one of the unique successful partnership between the State (Criminal Justice Institutions/Judicial Service of Ghana) and Civil Society Organizations (POS Foundation) in Ghana. This has brought significant reduction of remand prisoner population of 33% in 2007 during its inception to currently 14.5% as at August 2020.
Despite this remarkable feat and a desire to reduce the remand population to a single digit, COVID-19 posed as a serious threat, as activities were forced to be on hold. In view of this, the POS Foundation, Facilitators of the JFAP mooted the idea for a virtual court sitting to…
