Prisoner's Right to Bail Talk-shop (July 30, 2008)
On Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm Global Conscience Initiative will hold another in the series of popular talk-shops on Prisoners' Rights. Discussions at this talk shop will centre on the issues and problems surrounding the realities of bail and address concerns regarding prisoners' rights to access bail.
Discussion topics will include:
- Review and Signing of Special Petition to the Incoming Chief State Prosecutor
- Officials' Perspective on Prisoners' Right to Bail
- Role of Journalists
- Administrative Detention and Issues with Corruption at Checkpoints
- New Man Tax
Barristers, journalists, human rights workers, GCI staff and international interns will be participating in this talk. Additionally the discussion will feature contributions from government officials, barristers, judges, other legal professionals, journalists, media, and is open to general public.
Global Conscience looks forward to building on the work of previous talk-shops on this topic. To achieve this, GCI hopes that representatives from the police and prison services will be present to offer some insight into how the system works. There will also be an opportunity for officials to respond to any misconceptions the public might have about the administration of bail.
This third Talk Shop will be the last to feature the international interns of GCI 's Access to Justice Project. The interns strongly encourage you to come out and make this discussion the most productive yet.
The talk-shop will take place at Global Conscience Initiative's office located on Krammer Avenue , opposite the High Court, Kumba. Attendance should be reserved by calling GCI on (237) 33030613.
For more information please contact Kate Armstrong
Read more on our bail talk-shops
GCI creates 13-man Bail Committee
Global Conscience Initiative July 11 created a fourteen-man committee to contact the local Senior State Counsel and the Administration of Kumba to ensure that bail is free in the division. The Committee was created at the end of a three-hour Talk-shop that took place in the Global Conscience Secretariat opposite the High Court in Kumba.
About thirty lawyers, journalists, human rights and civil society activists and some members of the public took part in the discussion presided at by GCI's CEO and moderated by Journalist Olive Ejang Tebug of The Post Newspaper.
For three hours the participants, including Senior police and prison officials, discussed the following issues
Officials' Perspective on Prisoners' Right to Bail.
Is Bail Really Free?
Do Barristers Misappropriate Court “Fees”?
Claims against State for Prolonged and Wrongful Detention.
A Way Forward: Improvement for Access to Justice.
They concluded that local judicial administrators collect illegal fees for bail from accused persons thereby abusing their constitutional and human rights to the presumption of innocence and bail. The participants also observed that many innocent persons are sent to awaiting trial because of their inability to pay the bail fees, which are never receipted, rather than because they can jump bail or influence investigations.
The Talk Shop was the second organised by the Global Conscience Initiative on the same topic of bail. The newly created committee will meet the Senior Prosecutor in Kumba and present him with a petition, and then meet the different security and prison heads, as well as the administrative boss of Meme Division. The Committee will also send copies of the petition to the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms, the Ministry of Justice in Yaounde, the Southwest Attorney General, and to the World Justice Project of the American Bar Association. The Committee will meet from time to time to review developments in the situation of bail and follow up on previous actions.
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