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Chief Justice to create liaison
between government and courts
Kumasi, Dec. 24,
Ghanadot/GNA – Mrs. Georgina Theodora Wood, the Chief
Justice, has with immediate effect decided to create a
special liaison between the Judiciary, Legislature and the
Government.
This is to ensure that on daily basis any new Act of
Parliament, Constitutional or Executive Instrument passed by
Parliament is brought to the attention of the Judiciary.
Justice Jones Dotse, a Supreme Court Judge, who announced
this at a press conference in Kumasi on Tuesday, explained
that such a measure would ensure that laws requiring
immediate application did not escape the attention of the
courts, to avoid the application of outmoded laws.
He said “You must have been puzzled over the news item that
persons convicted of motor traffic offences and dealt with
by the courts since October 3, 2008, are to have their
sentences and fines varied but this is no big deal”.
Justice Dotse said that the failure to bring the passage of
Act 761 immediately to the attention of the courts and the
police, who mainly prosecuted motor traffic offences “can be
said to be a system’s failure between the Legislature,
Government printer and Judiciary”.
He said in order to address the illegalities that have
occurred since October 3, the Chief Justice had in series of
directives mandated Supervising High Court Judges to use the
provisions in section 52 and 53 (3) of the Courts Act, 1993
Act 459.
Justice Dotse said “By this, sentences and fines imposed by
the courts on motor traffic offenders on the old Law Act 683
since October 3, when Act 761 came into force will have
those sentences and fines varied so that they are brought
into line with penal provisions in the new law as contained
in Act 761”.
The press conference was necessitated by the revelation that
offending drivers who were prosecuted recently especially as
from October 3 this year, under the Road Traffic Act 2004,
Act 683, were unlawfully punished as that particular law had
been amended and replaced with Act 761, which gave lesser
penal sanctions to offending drivers.
GNA
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