The Minister of Education and Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu has said that using denial of bail as form of punishment for accused persons was not the law.
“We must uphold the principle of fair trial for every accused person as a country,” he said while speaking at a funeral of Mahama Shaibu in Tamale on Thursday (may 28, 2026).
Mahama Shaibu was a member of the board of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and a personal friend of Mr Haruna Iddrisu.
The former leader of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) caucus in Parliament said: “In Ghana today, we have seen excesses, excesses from the police, excesses from the court, excesses from EOCO, denying persons bail and using bail as punishment for accused persons, that is not law”.
He said it is triad knowledge and triad law, that don’t deny an accused person bail or ask an accused person to pay excessively as a punishment to the accused person, if you uphold the right to a fair trial and uphold the rights to innocence at trial, that every person is presumed innocent.
“So I expect that in Ghana today, we must end the high handedness and excessiveness in matters relating to bail and its denial and its charges,” he said.
