A private legal practitioner, Garry Nimako has asked the general public and the media to desist from public trial of persons accused of allegedly committing wrong doings in the country.
According to him, every accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction. Therefore media trial of cases must stop in the country.
Mr Nimako’s comment comes on the heels of charges levelled against a former Chief Executive Officer for the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen Opuni, for causing financial loss to the state.
Dr Opuni has been charged with a businessman and CEO of Zeera Group of Companies, Seidu Agongo and AgriCult Ghana Limited, with 27 charges.
According to the state, the two individuals and the company, connived to defraud the state of GHC 43, 120,000. This development has been widely discussed in the Ghanaian media.
Mr Nimako said : “The trial will not be done in the public, it will be done in the court room. You realise that normally people engage in public trial of cases but in the end the accused persons are exonerated by the courts.
“Sometimes the court can also be misled by the public trial and convict an accused person only for a court of appeal to overturn the judgement.
“I think we need to exercise constraint in our discussions on these matters so we don’t violate people’s right to fair hearing. This is a matter of law. Let us be fair in our reportage and wait till after the court hearing. Discussing matters of this kind on radio is not the way to go.”
