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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ghana's Public Tribunals: An Experiment in Revolutionary Justice
Author:Gocking, RogerISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:95
Issue:379
Period:April
Pages:197-223
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:special courts
Politics and Government
Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/723701
Abstract:In September 1982 Ghana's Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) established Public Tribunals in an attempt to bring order to the chaotic and often overlapping systems of revolutionary justice that then prevailed. They were not to replace the regular courts, but a dualistic criminal court system was envisaged. In July 1993, as part of the new constitutional arrangements of Ghana's Fourth Republic, this dualistic criminal court system came to an end. The present article first describes the background to revolutionary justice in Ghana and the establishment of the Public Tribunals. Then it analyses the operations of the Tribunals, paying attention to attempts to regularize their operating procedures, public support for and opposition to the Tribunals, changes in the focus of the Tribunals' major criminal adjudicative activities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the prosecution of narcotics offences, and the chronic problem of underfinancing. Finally, the article deals with the growing conflicts between the PNDC and the officials of the Public Tribunals in the 1990s and the eventual absorption of the Tribunals into the overall court system of the country. Notes, ref.
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