SOCIETY THRIVES ON LAW AND ORDER

“O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason.” Julius Caesar – William Shakespeare

Marc Anthony’s speech in Julius Caesar simply sums up our society today. Some Ghanaians have either witnessed or chanced upon the remains of a victim of mob justice or in the worst case actively participated in the lynching of a suspected thief; I personally have come across the remains of a victim of such twice and heard horrifying stories of how people were lynched after someone shouted “ei julor, or 3wi !”.

The most mind-boggling is the swiftness with which a suspected thief is apprehended and sentenced to death by these mobs without a hearing. Innocent people have been caught up and murdered cold-bloodedly in the hands of these angry mobs who would rather pronounce instance justice than hand over a suspect to the police with their reasoning that the police are inefficient in handling these “criminals”. There is a case of a robber who snatched a woman’s bag and as he made quick his escape was apprehended by a good Samaritan whereby the robber quickly shouted “3wi” and but for the timely intervention of the lady, the Samaritan would have joined his ancestors quite prematurely. Forget the fact that the said thief was still holding the booty and yet people ignored that and were ready to pounce on the poor man. This however is not an isolated incident

Indeed we must all be worried for it is said when your neighbour’s beard is on fire, you better get water near yours. Sometimes one is tempted to think such problems/issues are far from home until you hear your neighbor’s son was murdered in cold blood on a Thursday afternoon after a little disagreement with a taxi driver over the amount of fare to charge. In the midst of the misunderstanding the taxi driver shouted “thief” and before he could blink an eye a mob had surrounded him; all attempts at explaining he was no thief fell on deaf ears and he was beaten to death! And this happened in the full glare of jeering spectators. Have we become that mad and lost all faculties to reason? What then differentiates us from savages or even animals? 

At the core of vigilante justice is a widespread lack of faith in the judicial system and law enforcement agencies of our land. There are countless stories of suspected criminals who walk free because law enforcers failed to do their jobs. My mum was almost picked at Kaneshie and when she caught the petty thief he boldly told her, "Wu di mi kɔ tu Kaneshie Police station koraa, 2 hours na ɔmu agyai mi" to wit “if he was sent to Kaneshie Police Station he would be set free within two hours.” Such temerity! When she re-counted her story I laughed at the boldness of this thief… and yet it wasn’t something to laugh about.

To be a victim of armed robbers is a horrible experience and anyone who has suffered at their hands would be more than willing to lynch any suspected thief; but the real question is how does that resolve the bigger issue of our failed justice system?

Since there is little or no available data on the incidence of mob justice and possibly number of innocent people that have lost their lives it is quite difficult buttressing the point and getting people to realize just how wrong it is for this act to continue.

In 2007 Mr. Joseph Yeboah Boateng, a hospital administrator was lynched by some youth of Atronie when they found a body in his car thereby suspecting him to be a serial killer only to later find out he was not a supposed murderer. Besides if truly he was a serial killer the right and logical thing was to have handed him over to the police who even with their known inefficiencies would most likely have given the man the chance to defend himself and explain the situation accordingly. Yet these young men decided to be judges, juries and executioners.

Sir William Blackstone puts it succinctly; “all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.”

Finally, for every mob justice that occur the police and judiciary must bow their heads in shame for failing us woefully; further still society should also bow its head in shame for taking leave of its senses and allowing such an act to continue. Mob justice is not the solution to be opting for; irrespective of the slow nature of our judicial system one can demand justice without getting their hands bloodied.