Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday September 8, 2011.
THE FINANCIAL and Economic Crimes Court, (FECC) a specialized division of the High Court established by government to handle high profile corruption and other related cases of public office holders is underutilized.
Apart from the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) formerly Serious Fraud Office (SFO) that from time to time sends cases to them to be tried, not a single government agency has used the courts or even visited the place to familiarize themselves with activities there.
It particularly cited the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the legislative arm of government, saying it had failed to fulfill its constitutional mandate of complementing the efforts of the judiciary to ensure the administration of justice is complete.
The FECCs have the status of a high court. Currently, there are three of such courts in the country, two located in Accra and another in Kumasi.
The court has jurisdiction in all matters both civil and criminal including offences created under the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), the Financial Administration Act, 2003 (Act 654) as amended, The Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663); and the Internal Audit Agency Act, 2003 (Act 658).
The rest are Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2008 (Act 749); Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772); and Economic & Organised Crimes, 2010 (Act 804), in addition to any other jurisdiction conferred on the court by any enactment.
Judicial Secretary, Justice Alex B. Poku-Acheampong told DAILY GUIDE recently that it was difficult to understand why government agencies were not making good use of the courts to try cases that fell under their jurisdiction.
“We have all it takes to handle cases such high profile cases. Our judges have undergone specialized training in the areas and are capable of handling any issue brought before them for adjudication.”
He said the German Technical Corporation, (GTZ) has been doing well in building the capacities of the judges to be able to handle sophisticated crimes and added that some civil society organizations have also been doing well in the capacity building of judges.
Justice Poku-Acheampong said the Chief Justice, under Articles 125(4) and 139 (3) of the 1992 Constitution, has fulfilled her constitutional mandate by establishing the courts and that it was up to the state agencies to access them.
“The courts have the jurisdiction to try cases emanating from work done by the Public Accounts Committee of parliament. The Chief Justice as a result has written to parliament about the availability of such courts but they have not brought cases to these courts.”
Alfred Morque Mensah-Attah, Registrar of the specialized courts said because the judges were not inundated with cases, the Chief Justice sometimes assigned cases other than what pertained in the jurisdiction of the specialized courts to them to handle.
He said so far, it was the EOCO that had been coming to them to have their cases tried, saying “at least they have brought close to 100 cases some of which have been disposed of and others still on trial.”
The registrar said “cases such as willfully causing financial loss to the state, stealing and embezzlement of public funds, corruption, providing electronic communications service without a license and knowingly obstructing and interfering with the sending, transmission, delivery and reception of communication cases, among others have been dealt with by these courts.”
He said no case from the PAC has as yet been put before the court although in March 2010 at a round-table conference organized by the Public Accounts Committee of parliament sponsored by German NGO, GTZ, the two justices from the FECC presented a paper on the establishment of the financial court and made recommendations that cases emanating from the PAC should be brought to them.
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