[ 2017-03-02 ]

Justice Emile Short, Former Commissioner of Human Rights and Administration Justice (CHRAJ)

Make corruption felony offence - Justice Short
Former Commissioner of Human Rights and
Administration Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile
Short, has called for the amendment of the
Criminal Offences Act to make corruption a high
crime rather than a misdemeanor.

According to the former commisioner, the
definition of corruption in the Act gives it a
very narrow scope that required an amendment to
give it a wider remit to deter culprits.

Justice Short in an interview recently said
government would need to pass domestic legislation
that would corroborate with the United Nations
(UN) protocol as part of measures to make the
age-old canker unattractive.

“A felony attracts a much higher sentence than a
misdemeanor. The idea is to make the sentence for
corruption much higher to serve as a deterrent.
The definition of corruption in the Criminal
Offences Act is very narrow.

Ghana has ratified the UN Convention against
corruption and the African Convention for
combating corruption.”
“These two conventions, which were ratified in
2005, gave a much wider definition of corruption
to include things like illicit enrichment and
insider dealings. There is the need for Parliament
to pass domestic legislation to embrace this wider
definition,” he stated.

Justice Short further appealed to government to
amend the Asset Declaration Law to ensure
compliance.

“There is the need to amend the Asset
Declaration Law to make it more effective because
at the moment no institution has the mandate to
check the veracity of the declarations which are
made and also the declarations are not made
public,” he noted, adding: “CHRAJ only has the
mandate to investigate noncompliance.

If the law is amended, it still could be made an
offence (not to declare asse)] to make it more
stringent and effective but at the moment there is
no provision that says that it’s a criminal
offence.”

Source - classfmonline.com

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