The government is behind the circuit court's refusal to grant bail to some Democracy Hub leaders and their fellow protestors who have been arrested by the police and detained for various charges, including conspiracy to commit a crime, unlawful assembly, and causing unlawful damage, among others, Lawyers In Search of Democracy (LINSOD) has alleged.
The group's leader, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, who is among the more than 30 others arrested, arraigned, and denied bail, was captured in a viral video turning off the ignition of a police vehicle and bolting with the car key.
In a statement, LINSOD said in its objective view, "the refusal of bail to the demonstrators, who, whether or not they have caused some minor destruction to public property, on one hand, and remanding them to reappear in court after two weeks, on the other hand, is unusual and obviously not normal." "It is reminiscent of regimes of brutal dictatorships and authoritarian rule, which we thought we had moved away from since 1992 when the Fourth Republic was ushered in," the statement co-signed by Eric Delanyo Alifo (President) and Theophilus Dzimega Jr (Secretary) said. "It is because courts of justice in democracies, and in normal times, do not, and must never, subject mere demonstrators to the kind of ruling made by the circuit courts in Accra yesterday that we have come to the conclusion that the hands of the government are hugely behind this ill-treatment of the demonstrators," the group explained.
The group noted that the circuit courts' "rather shocking and regrettable" decision to remand the suspects en bloc in police and prison custody for two weeks without giving them access to their family and lawyers was most unexpected since the courts are where the rule of law should prevail. "Again, the very fact that the Office of the Attorney General had run to the circuit courts-where the practice is normally for the police to represent the Republic-and took over the prosecution, and prayed that the demonstrators be remanded instead of admitting them to bail as would reasonably be expected in a proper democracy where the rule of law works, reveals amply that the ruling NPP government is behind the brutality of the demonstrators," LINSOD argued. "What shocks our minds is that the courts in this case sided with the government to subject the demonstrators to inhumane treatment and abuse of their rights without even considering the cause the demonstrators were fighting for, which is the 'galamsey' menace," LINSOD noted.