The pursuit of assets of criminals should not become a vehicle for shielding criminals from prosecution – Attorney- General

The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has said that it is crucial to ensure that efforts to recover criminals’ assets do not become a means to hide crimes or protect offenders from prosecution.

He noted that Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) and plea bargains must not serve as a loophole for prosecutors and defendants to evade accountability or avoid admitting guilt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, care must be taken to ensure that the pursuit of assets of criminals does not become a vehicle for concealment of crime and shielding criminals from prosecution. The conclusion of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) in certain jurisdictions and plea-bargaining agreements should not be used as a conduit by prosecuting authorities and accused persons for the avoidance of liability or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Ghana recently, in 2022, introduced plea bargaining into its criminal jurisprudence.

We have been confronted with situations where some criminals have resorted to plea bargaining arrangements with the State in an opaque and vague manner bordering on the avoidance of accountability.

Where prosecutors are motivated by the sole objective of recovering supposed proceeds of crime in a situation where the accused persons plainly refuse to admit responsibility for the commission of those crimes, an unwanted paradox inimical to the rationale for the existence of criminal laws occurs.

The prosecutors will face a real risk of sacrificing their reputation and creating a false impression of having compromised their professional integrity and duty to prove the commission of an offence on the altar of making money for the State, or providing a shield from prosecution to accused persons. A delicate balance therefore ought to be struck,” Mr Dame said.

The Attorney-General who was speaking at the 41st Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime at the University of Cambridge intimated that, in as much as the focus of financial crimes is to retrieve monies back into the national purse, accused persons must admit offense before it is resorted to.

“In my respectful view, therefore, plea bargaining should as much as possible be entered into on the basis of a clear acknowledgement of responsibility for the commission of crime, especially financial and economic crimes which directly affect the use of the national purse.

“It is only when the commission of an economic crime may be impossible to prove or the necessity for a trial of same is outweighed by more compelling considerations that a plea agreement or a DPA, which is not founded on an admission of liability, may be entered into,” Godfred Dame posited.

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