Police under fire as Harvard law student lashes out

A Ghanaian studying at America’s prestigious Harvard Law School has lashed out at the Ghana Police Service’s (GPS) record, the police abuse of power, the absence of the separation of powers in the prosecuting process, the “gross” inefficient use of resources and the feeble attempt at reforming the complaints procedure suggested by Sam Awortwe, Director, Legal and Prosecutions at the GPS.

These comments by Raymond Atugubu, also Projects Director at the NGO, Legal Resources Centre, came in a paper delivered on the second day of the Police and Policing Conference in Accra.

The young lawyer supported the view of the elderly retired senior police officer, Anthony Deku when he said that the Ghanaian policing institutions were in a worse state than in late colonial times, in contrast to much of the ritual colonial condemnation rhetoric heard in the Hall on the opening day of the conference.

He said the police have wide powers often hidden in many pieces of legislation, which they can use to hinder effective monitoring of their activities. This was partly due to the lackluster development and interpretation of the law by Ghana’s legal profession.

He did not accept the common defence of the GPS that they were poorly funded.

He cited cases of unnecessary arrest and irrelevant functions such as private debt collections as wasteful of resources.