Public disturbance law must be amended – PUSMOG

The Public Youth and Students Movement of Ghana (PUSMOG), a Non Governmental Organisation, has called on stakeholders to amend the Public Disturbance Law so that Ghanaians could enjoy their human rights.

PUSMOG said the public disturbance law was an infringement on the rights of Ghanaians since the law could not specify the principles under which one should be held punishable by it.

Mr Fredrick Duncan Modzabi, Founder and Leader of the group, said this during a press conference in Accra on Thursday.

Mr Modzabi called on the Chief Justice, Attorney General, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to take immediate steps to halt the enforcement of the law.

He said the public disturbance law centers its attention on noise as a nuisance but did not specify the amount or volume of noise that was accepted by this law in the society and the degree or volume at which the law would begin to calculate disturbance of the noise to be an offence which constituted public disturbance.

“ Since the law did not specify the volume of noise to be made before one was arrested and the distance that should be calculated for one to be found guilty of it, it was best for it not to be operational until stakeholders sat down to take a second look at it again” he said.

“There was no just cause for people to be punished under a law that did not clearly define its existence in the law book” he added.

Mr Modzabi cited the closure of the Opambour’s Church, which the court had accepted as noise nuisance, was not justifiable because the constitution allows for freedom of worship and association.

“If that was the case, under what category would one put the President’s motorcade siren noise, the noise produced by the police during their operations, advertisers, funeral processions, drinking spots, churches, manufacturing engines, dogs barking, political party campaigns etc” he added.

PUSMOG is a NGO which deals with problems of the youth, their welfare, and problems facing Ghanaians and helping promote good governance in the avoidance of inequality, injustices and indiscipline.**