Cops Chase IGP For Justice

The police administration has been accused of flouting a court order to reinstate two police officers wrongfully dismissed from the service in 2008. Counsel for the two police officers, Mr Francis Xavier Sosu is livid that the police administration is deliberately refusing to reinstate the officers as directed by the court. The Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court on October 30, 2013 ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to reinstate Corporals Foster Mensah and Daniel Agitator into the service after the court ordered that the report of the Central Disciplinary Board which investigated the misconduct that led to the dismissal of the two to be set aside. The two policemen, according to the court, were to be paid all their salary arrears with interest from May 1, 2008 to date, in accordance with the Bank of Ghana prevailing rate. According to Mr Sosu, who spoke to The Finder in an exclusive interview, it has become almost impossible for him to execute the judgement on behalf of his clients. According to him, he has not been able to file an entry of judgement because the police administration refused to furnish him with the necessary information to do so. �For us to be able to file an entry of judgement, we are required to calculate all the necessary monies they will be due instead of quoting figures just for it to be challenged by the police administration.� He added, �We have been to their legal department and their pay office. We had meetings with them to get the necessary information to be able to file our entry of judgement for them to be reinstated, but the police administration has blatantly refused to give us any such information.� He told The Finder that the situation was quite worrying because as a public institution and promoter of rule of law, when a court gives a direction, everything necessary for the compliance of that direction must be provided for the necessary co-operation. Mr Sosu said his clients have some figures but they do not want to file those figures for it to become another basis for litigation, adding: �The institution has just refused to give us the necessary information and this brings to the fore the need for the right to information bill.� When The Finder contacted the police administration, ACP Frank Coffie of the Police Legal Department said asking for the figures verbally was not enough and that it was important for Mr Sosu to write officially to the police administration to respond to it. He said if the police fail to provide the information requested, then Mr Sosu was entitled to file a mandamus in court to compel the police to comply. The affected policemen through their counsel filed a suit against the IGP and the Attorney General for wrongfully dismissing them. In their reliefs, they prayed the court to order that the Central Disciplinary Board did not have jurisdiction to order their dismissal when they were found not to be guilty of the offences with which they had been charged by the service enquiry. They also sought the court to order that their dismissal was unlawful, capricious and against the fundamental rights of human charges. Additionally, they prayed the court to order their reinstatement and the payment of their salary arrears from April 30, 2008 when they were unlawfully dismissed. According to the police administration, Corporals Mensah and Agitator were, on April 30, 2008, dismissed from the Ghana Police Service after the Central Disciplinary Board of the service had found them guilty of misconduct. They were said to have stopped a man, Paul Clark Ansah, who was in a Kia Pride taxi, with registration number GW 206 X, and demanded a bribe from him.