General News of Sunday, 30 July 2017
Source: citifmonline.com
2017-07-30
Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo – Lawyer
A private legal practitioner, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, is urging the Member’s of Parliament served with warrants and subjected to searches on their way to Parliament to sue the police.
Mr. Samoa Addo, a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress, said the morning raid of the home of former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor for some evidence related to the AMERI power agreement, was an affront to the dignity of Parliament.
In Mr. Jinapor’s case, police did not give him a copy of the warrant after a legitimate request before the search and the lawyer, speaking on The Big Issue, noted that what the officers may have wanted to do was lawful but may not have been carried out lawfully.
In general, Mr. Samoa Addo felt the police were let off the hook for crossing the line over certain arrests.
“It is about time people started suing the police for what I would consider constitutes a lawful arrest because most times people feel that because you can hold a person for 48 hours means that you have necessarily got the unimpeded constitutional right to hold someone for 48 hours. The Constitution talks about reasonable suspicion – that you must a have a reasonable basis to hold somebody.”
“I think the Members of Parliament of Parliament themselves must take the matter to court… this is a fine opportunity for the courts to pronounce that when a Member of Parliament is on his way to or from Parliament, you cannot serve him with a process. So that service of the warrant on them at the time is illegal.”
Security personnel must be queried in public
Criticism of the raid was noted by the Speaker of Parliament summoned an emergency meeting with some national security officers.
But Mr. Samoa Addo said officers connected must be queried in public before the House.
“I think that Members of Parliament, to protect their own dignity, must drag the officers in question before Parliament. I don’t think Mr. Speaker should do this in private. Mr. Speaker must bring them to Parliament so that they will be educated on what they can do and what they can do and what they cannot do.”
