My take , Justice at police station, relief at the bus stop. Two developments caught my attention this week. Both are fundamental. Both speak to problems ordinary Ghanaians confront every day.
And both remind us that sometimes the most meaningful interventions are not the grandest. One concerns the liberty of the citizens. The other concerns the struggle to make a living.
Attorney General Dominic Ayine has proposed deploying lawyers to police stations to help protect the rights of suspects. Wow.Think about that. The constitution guarantees the arrested person certain rights. But between what the constitution promises and what happens in some police stations, there can be a troubling distance.
A suspect may be frightened, intimidated, or simply ignorant of the law. Some cannot afford a lawyer at all. Others do not even know whom to call.
And that is precisely when legal assistance matters the most. Not three days after an unlawful detention. Not after a confession has been improperly obtained. Not when the suspect finally appears before a judge. At the police station. At the earliest opportunity.
Article 14 of our constitution requires that an arrested person be informed immediately in a language they understand of the reasons for the arrest. And their rights to a lawyer of their own choice.
But a constitutional right that cannot be exercised when it matters most risks becoming little more than a beautiful promise on paper. It has been for a long time. In our police stations. In our villages.
I welcome the Attorney General’s proposal. Of course, lawyers at police stations must not become an excuse to interfere with lawful investigations or prevent the police from doing their work.
Suspects have rights. Victims also have rights. And society, more importantly, has an interest in effective law enforcement. Protecting suspects’ rights and investigating crime are not competing obligations.
Both are duties of a lawful state. The proposal must now move beyond announcement to implementation. We’ve trained lawyers and now we’re beginning to train them in the thousands.
Adequate funding, clear procedures and dependable access, including outside ordinary working hours. 24 hours economy there. Because justice should not begin only when the accused enters the courtroom. Justice must begin where the citizen first encounters the coercive power of the state.
And then there is the second development. The daily struggle at our bus stops.Anyone who has watched commuters in Accra, including even at dawn or after a hard day’s work, knows the problem. Long queues, endless waiting. People rushing from one trotro to another. Workers arriving late through no fault of theirs. Parents returning home exhausted. Sometimes long after their children have gone to bed. Time lost. Productivity lost.
Family life disrupted. For years, we have watched public buses, acquired at considerable expense, become underutilised. Even as commuters struggle to find transport.
Now, the Ayalolo buses are being deployed through a contra-flow arrangement on the Adenta, Amasaman and Kasoa corridors. GAFTI says the service is moving more than 8,000 passengers daily. And that some journeys, which previously took hours, are now being completed in substantially less time.
We have heard the people themselves testify to this. The initiative has attracted attention to former Majority Leader Mahama Ayalolo’s role in finding a practical response to this problem. What interests me is the thinking behind it.
Thinking out of the box. We do not always have to wait for an expensive new project before improving people’s lives. Sometimes, we must first make better use of what we already have.
Of course, this is no complete solution to our transport crisis. We need more reliable buses, proper maintenance, safe traffic management, and a sustainable public transport system. But when a worker, who previously spent hours struggling to get home, can now make that journey more easily, that relief is real.
And it matters. Here are two developments which, at first glance, have little in common. One is about lawyers at police stations. The other is about buses on our roads. But look again, one seeks to reduce the helplessness of the suspect. The other seeks to reduce the helplessness of the commuter. One concerns the citizen’s liberty, the other concerns the citizen’s livelihood.
Both speak to a simple measure of public service. Does it make life better for the people? We must not mistake proposals for achievements. The Attorney General’s idea must be implemented.
And we must not mistake early transport relief for a permanent solution. The Ayalolo intervention must be sustained and improved. But these are precisely the kinds of practical interventions that deserve serious attention, scrutiny, and well-justified encouragement, as I’m doing now.
Because government is not experienced only through budgets, speeches, ceremonies, and grand projects. It is experienced by the frightened suspect sitting in a police station without a lawyer.
And by the exhausted worker standing at a bus stop wondering how to get home. Bring justice closer to the suspect, bring transport closer to the commuter. Make constitutional rights real make public investment useful. And remember, sometimes the little things are not little at all.
They are the very things that make life bearable.And that is my take.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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