State investigative body, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (ECOCO) has the powers to stop the Deputy Chairperson in charge of Corporate Services at the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, Georgina Opoku Amankwah, from entering the office, Dr Nana Oppong, a private legal practitioner, has said.
According to him, the constitution empowers persons or bodies mandated to carry out investigations to disallow people from entering places at the centre of investigations.
On the other hand, he explained that, the same constitution also indicates that persons under investigations are innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction, therefore, to the extent that Mrs Amankwah has not been found guilty by a court, she has the right to go to work.
On Monday, 15 January Mrs Amankwah reported to the EC office despite a directive by EOCO for her to proceed on leave while the allegation is investigated.
Her presence in the office on Monday caused a scene as police officers and officials from EOCO stormed the EC to impress upon her to leave.
She has been home for the past seven months since the whole issue stormed over.
Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of the Ghana Yensom show on Accra 100.5FM on Tuesday January 16, Dr Oppong said: “The Electoral Commissioners are free to act without interference from any person, unless they have committed a serious offence before they can be taken out.
“Two things come to play here regarding the action taken by the EOCO yesterday. The first is the constitution says everybody is presumed innocent until proven guilty and so if you are conducting an investigation into this matter, it doesn’t mean she is guilty.
“But the same constitution says also that whenever a person is given the powers to act, it is implied in that power that everything that is necessary to carry out that action is also given. If you are given the power to conduct investigations you have the power to stop somebody from going to the office where that is necessary for investigations and so they have the discretion to stop her from going to the office, at the same time, she can also say she is innocent until proven guilty and so she has the right to go the office.”
Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com
