Police blur the line between invitations and arrests – Reindorf Twumasi Ankrah

Legal practitioner and Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC), Reindorf Twumasi Ankrah, has criticised law enforcement agencies for blurring the distinction between inviting citizens to assist investigations and placing them under arrest.

Speaking to Samson Lardy on The Law on JoyNews on Sunday, October 4, 2026, he said the practice had created apprehension among people who might otherwise be willing to assist investigations.

Mr Twumasi Ankrah explained that an invitation could be a request for information or documents to help investigators establish the facts, without the person being treated as a suspect.

However, he said some people honoured such requests only to discover that they were no longer free to leave.

“More often than not, you are invited, and being a law-abiding citizen who wants to see that justice is done or that truth is ascertained, you attend the invitation only to go there, and after giving the information that the police require from you, you are told you can’t leave,” he said.

He argued that once a person’s freedom to leave was restricted, law enforcement officers must recognise the change in circumstances and take steps to safeguard the person’s constitutional rights.

“At that particular point in time, the police is required by law to take certain steps to ensure that your constitutional rights are safeguarded. But mostly the police blur the line,” he stated.

Mr Twumasi Ankrah acknowledged that inviting someone to assist an investigation was generally a prudent approach, particularly when investigators had yet to determine the person’s role in a case.

He said the difficulty arose when invitations routinely resulted in arrests, leaving citizens uncertain about what to expect.

“They have so often turned an invitation into an arrest that the people have now become apprehensive,” he said.

According to him, the uncertainty had prompted some people to decline invitations and wait for law enforcement agencies to exercise their powers of arrest.

He said citizens were consequently trying to balance their willingness to assist investigators with the need to protect their liberty.

“There is this genuine fear… that when they go, there is a likelihood they won’t come back home. So, the police also have some work to do in that regard,” he added.

The legal practitioner advised people attending police invitations to seek legal assistance, explaining that their status could change during questioning.

“You go with your lawyer to pre-empt anything that may happen which was not within your contemplation,” he said.

He stressed that legal representation could help individuals understand their position in an investigation and assert their rights if an invitation developed into an arrest.