EOCO’s attempted arrest of Baffour Awuah was flawed beyond saving – Law Lecturer

Lawyer and lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Lenin Nicholas Anane Agyei, has argued that the attempted arrest of Manhyia South MP Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) had no sufficient legal basis.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Mr Anane Agyei described the attempted arrest as “flawed beyond saving”, arguing that Section 19 of the Economic and Organised Crime Office Act, 2010 (Act 804) does not criminalise a person’s refusal to honour an invitation from EOCO.

“Plainly speaking, the attempted arrest of Honourable Baffour Awuah was flawed beyond saving,” he said.

He explained that Section 19(1) gives the EOCO Executive Director the power to invite a person to assist with an investigation and also empowers the office to compel the furnishing or production of documents.

However, he pointed to Section 19(5), which he said expressly criminalises failure to produce documents when required, but does not provide a similar criminal consequence for refusing to appear in response to an invitation.

“When you go to Section 19(5), it criminalises failure to produce documents when it is required, but it has not said anything about a refusal to honour an invitation,” he said.

Mr Anane Agyei therefore rejected the suggestion that the absence of a specific sanction for refusing an invitation amounted to an unintended gap in the law.

“And so it was not a lacuna intended by Parliament. Parliament intended not to criminalise refusal to appear, because an invitation is what it is,” he said.

According to him, had Parliament intended EOCO to have the power to impose criminal consequences on a person who declined an invitation to appear, it would have expressly provided for such consequences in the legislation.

“If Parliament intended that EOCO requires you to appear and you refuse to, you should have consequences, it would have in that same section being provided,” he said.

On that basis, he argued that even if Mr Baffour Awuah had failed to respond to or attend an EOCO invitation, that failure alone could not have provided the legal basis for his arrest.

“So on that score, the failure of Baffour Awuah to respond or attend the invitation, even if he so did, will not have been the basis for EOCO to arrest him in any sort of manner,” he said.

He further questioned the legality of the attempted arrest in the absence of an arrest warrant, arguing that the circumstances did not satisfy the requirements for a warrantless arrest.

“The fact that there was the absence of warrant and also, the fact that the conditions for a warrantless arrest did not exist,” he said.

Mr Anane Agyei acknowledged that warrantless arrests occur frequently in Ghana but stressed that their occurrence does not, in itself, establish their legality.

“I dare say that most of the arrest that happens in this country often are warrantless,” he said.

His comments follow the confrontation between the Manhyia South MP and EOCO personnel at the Accra High Court on Wednesday, September 23.