The African Court rejects the case against Ghana

General News on Friday, April 26, 2019

Source: Ghananewsgency.org

2019-04-26

The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has rejected a human rights appeal against the country by a man named Dexter Eddie Johnson, who was convicted and sentenced to death for murder and was currently on death row awaiting execution.

In its March 28th judgment by the Ghana News Agency, the African Court declared that the petition did not meet the admissibility requirement of Article 56 (7) of the African Charter, which is also reflected in Rule 4O (7) of the rules of the court.

The African Court recalls that the conditions of admissibility under Article 56 of the Charter are cumulative and that, therefore, if one of them is not fulfilled, the query as a whole must fail.

"In this case, the application does not meet the condition set out in section 56 (7) of the Charter; the Court dismissed the appeal as inadmissible

The African Court was composed of: Judge Sylvain Ore, President; Judge Ben Kioko, Vice-President; Judge Rafad Ben Achour; Judge Angelo V. Matusse; Judge Suzanne Mengue; Judge Tujilane R. Chizumila; Judge Chafika Bensaoula; Judge Blaise Tchikaya; Judge Stella I. Anukam; and Judge Imani D. Aboud.

Dexter Eddie Johnson was represented by Saul Lehrfreund, Executive Co-Director, The Death Penalty Project.

Ghana was represented by Ms. Gloria Afua Akuffo, Attorney General and Minister of Justice; Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame, Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Minister of Justice; Mrs. Helen A. A. Ziwu, Solicitor General; and Ms. Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, Director of Public Prosecutions.

According to the facts, Johnson has dual Ghanaian and British nationality.

He was convicted and sentenced to death on June 18, 2008 by an Accra High Court in Accra for the murder of a US citizen on May 27, 2000 in a village near Ningo, in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. . He appeared in court where he denied the offense but after a full trial he was convicted and sentenced accordingly.

The applicant appealed against his conviction to the Court of Appeal, arguing that, if the death penalty as such is authorized by Article 13 (1) of the Constitution of Ghana, the death penalty is not allowed. Mandatory imposition of the death penalty, on which the Constitution was silent, was unconstitutional.

It baderts that the mandatory death penalty violates the right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of life and the right to a fair trial, all of which are protected by the Convention. Constitution of 1992.

However, on July 16, 2009, the appeal court dismissed the appeal for both the conviction and the sentence, but the applicant continued his appeal to the Supreme Court. On March 16, 2011, her appeal was again rejected.

Subsequently, in December 2011 and April 2012, the complainant sent two requests for pardon to the President of Ghana.

In July 2012, the Applicant filed a communication with the United Nations Human Rights Committee under the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

On March 27, 2014, the Human Rights Committee found that, since Ghanaian law was the only punishable sentence of murder under the death penalty, the courts did not the power to pronounce the only penalty authorized by law.