REFORMING JURY TRIAL IN GHANA - FREE REVISION LESSONS FOR 2023 GHANA SCHOOL OF LAW ENTRANCE EXAMS скачать в хорошем качестве

REFORMING JURY TRIAL IN GHANA - FREE REVISION LESSONS FOR 2023 GHANA SCHOOL OF LAW ENTRANCE EXAMS

JURY TRIAL IN GHANA Q3. The jury system is an anachronism Ghana’s judicial system can ill afford. Do you agree with this proposition? Give reasons for your answer. What recommendations if any would you make to reform the current system? ( 2018 GSL Entrance Examination) 1992 Constitution and jury trial: , Article 19 (2) (a) states that: A person charged with a criminal offence shall in the case of an offence other than high treason or treason, the punishment for which is death or imprisonment for life, be tried by a judge and jury and where the punishment is death, the verdict of the jury shall be unanimous; and in the case of life imprisonment, the verdict of the jury shall be by such majority as Parliament may by law prescribe. ARGUMENTS AGAINST JURY TRIAL Those advocating the abolition of jury trial in Ghana complain about • jury misconduct, • undue media and public influence, • unreasonable delay, • incompetence, • the laborious and time-consuming nature of jury trials, and its associated excessive cost. Jurors are given an honorarium of around GH¢ 12 for every day they attend court. Every jury is obligated to attend court on every day that the court sits, irrespective of whether a jury is necessary or not. • When a juror is absent, no trial takes place. If the juror is sick then a new panel must be put in place, and the entire process must be gone through again. • When the Attorney-General (A-G) delays for one reason or another, the jury must be discharged till the A-G is ready. • Members of the jury sometimes find the trial boring and fall asleep! While you are busily leading evidence or cross-examining, you look at them only to see some asleep, with only one or two listening attentively • the greatest problem about jury trial comes from the judges. How to direct the jury. Almost all the appeals from murder cases have to do with how the judge handled the jury. In the case of Atiemo vs Commissioner of Police (1963) 1 GLR 117-129 SC: Holding (3) says: “Where a judge is sitting quite alone as a tribunal of fact, the principles applicable to a summing up to a jury or to directions to assessors do not apply, for there is no necessity to give assistance to laymen on the legal points involved in the case and on each side's version of facts in relation to those legal points. “If there is evidence before the trial judge which he accepts to found a conviction, an appeal court will not interfere with that conviction.” • since murder appeals invariably reverse the judgments of the trial court, it implies waste of time of the jury. Those supporting retention of jury trial in Ghana as well as those supporting its modification believe that jury trial benefits can be enormous. • They assert that the right to a jury trial is a prime indicator of the democratic nature of a country, particularly a third-world country. • They further hold that because the jury-trial system was developed on democratic principles and has stood the test of time, the system should not be abolished, but instead only refined to better meet the aspirations of the forefathers who embraced the concept.