Witness can't excersie constitutional right -Justice

A former Attorney-General and a retired Supreme Court Judge, Mr G.E.K. Aikins has stated that witnesses who appear before National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) cannot exercise their constitutional right to remain silent.

He said the commission is different from a court of law where an accused or a witness can invoke his constitutional right to remain silent and stick to his original statement given to the police or investigators.

Justice Aikins disclosed this to the Evening News in an interview on Monday at a day’s seminar for Journalists in Accra. He said the NRC is not a law court presiding over criminal proceedings but a commission of enquiry and therefore, it has enough powers to force any witness to talk when he or she appears before it. “A person who refuses to do so, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 500 penalty units or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or both,” he said.

At a recent news conference organised to mark its 10th anniversary, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) General Secretary, Dr Nii Josiah-Aryeh raised the issue as to whether the NRC would not create a constitutional crisis if persons that appear before it cannot decide to remain silent.

However, when the Evening News posed the question to Justice Aikins, he said the Act 611, 2002 which established the NRC, clearly states what should be done in such circumstances. He further quoted Act 279 and 280 of the 1992 constitution to support his assertion that no person can decide to remain silent when he appears before the commission.

The former Attorney General also advised journalists who would be covering proceedings of the commission to desist from colouring their reportage, adding that, this could lead to such journalists being cited for contempt.

In his address, Professor E. Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, organisers of the programme, said the national reconciliation exercise should seek to address past abuses on the basis of understanding and not vengeance. “It should encourage reparation and not retaliation, in order to promote lasting unity and forge national consensus,” he said.

Prof Gyimah-Boadi noted that the reconciliation process and commission may raise unrealistic expectations among victims of abuse who might harbour the belief that perpetrators would definitely be punished or that they will receive full compensation for the wrongs done to them. According to him, there is risk that the public would feel cheated or angry if such expectations are not met.

Prof Jo Ellen Fair from the University of Wisconsin, USA, noted that for the exercise to be successfully completed, the role of the media was very crucial. She noted that the success of the exercise would depend on the quality of reportage on the proceedings. Prof Fair tasked media personnel to rise above partisan interest and entrenched positions when covering proceedings.

Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, Lecturer at the School of Communications, University of Ghana, Legon asked journalists to recognise the damage that inflammatory language could cause, saying “there is the need to avoid abusive and threatening provocative language during the coverage of the NRC proceedings.”