The Upper East Regional Supervising High Court Judge, Justice Charles Adjei Wilson, has encouraged the Ghana Journalist Association to go to court to seek interpretation of the Ghana Police Service directive on police communication with the media.
The Ghana Police Service recently mandated that only the Director of the Police Public Affairs Unit at Police Headquarters in Accra engage the media on crime-related topics and police investigations.
When asked his thoughts on the police’s directive, the Upper East Regional Supervising High Court Judge, Justice Charles Adjei Wilson, in response, urged the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) to take the matter to the Supreme Court if it is unhappy with the directive.
“The Ghana Journalist Association should go to the Supreme Court to seek interpretation. Even the Upper East Regional Journalist can go to the Supreme Court. You can go to the Supreme Court, and then the court would interpret it,” he said.
Justice Adjei Wilson shared these sentiments when he spoke at a public lecture organised by the GJA.
At the same lecture, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA), William Nlanjerbor Jalulah, appealed to the national leadership of the Association to consider sanctioning a total boycott of media coverage of police events, including ones that would feature the President, Vice President, and other high level government officials.
This, according to Mr. Jalulah, would force the police to reverse their decision that allows only the Director of Police Public Affairs Unit at the Police Headquarters in Accra to engage the media on crime related issues and police investigations.
“I wish to appeal to the Inspector-General of Police, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, to, as a matter of immediacy, lift his inimical directive that has barred District, Divisional, and Regional Police Commanders and other senior officers of the service from speaking to the media, except the Director of Police Public Affairs Unit at the Police Headquarters in Accra. The question is; how well can a police officer sitting in Accra, speak creditably to issues happening in the Upper East Region or anywhere in Ghana? Why can’t the same officers giving briefings to the Public Affairs Unit, speak to the media in their respective regions just as it was the case in the past?”
“As a way of mounting pressure on the IGP to immediately reverse this unhealthy directive, I wish to suggest to the national leadership of the Ghana Journalist Association to sanction a boycott of all police activities and programmes. That means there should be no media coverage of any activities or programmes by the IGP and his administration, including programmes President Akufo-Addo, his Vice or any of his appointees will attend. This boycott should be sustained as long as the repressive directive by the IGP remains enforced,” he explained.
The Upper East Regional Chairman of the GJA, who doubles as the General Manager of Bolgatanga-based A1 Radio, a subsidiary of Agreed Best Communication Limited, shared these sentiments when he spoke at a public lecture organised by the GJA.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
