Court orders GHc45,000 compensation to each victim of Techiman South shooting

The High Court in Wenchi has directed the state to pay GHc45,000 each as damages to six persons who suffered varying degrees of injuries during the shooting incident at the Techiman South collation centre in the 2020 polls.

In the aftermath of the 2020 parliamentary election, disturbances erupted at the collation centre ahead of the declaration of Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah as member of Parliament elect.

The security in an attempt to control the situation, fired shots that killed two persons and resulted in the injury of a number of persons.

The applicants who were affected, filed the case at the high court alleging infringement on their right to life as enshrined in article 13 of the 1992 constitution and other international statutes.

Though the state represented by the office of the Attorney General admitted that there were shootings, it explained that the officers only fired warning shots to disperse the crowd who according to the state, sought to disrupt the collation process and harm electoral officers.

The state argued that the security officers were justified to have used reasonable force.

The office of the Attorney General further denied that the injuries could be linked to the shooting by the security officers. According to the state lawyers, there were gunshots from within the crowd who had gathered at the collation hence the injuries may have been caused by those shootings.

The court in its judgment however disagreed with the state. The court found enough evidence to show that the security officers shot directly into the crowd. The said shooting according to the court was indiscriminate.

This was based on conclusions by the court that there existed no reason constitutionally, for the security to have acted in such a manner, seeking to infringe the rights of the plaintiffs to life.

The court found it disturbing that the shooting was not targeted at persons causing the mayhem as alleged by the state.

Moreover, the judge did not find any evidence to convince the court that there was any other shooting apart from the one undertaken by the security officers.

The court however refused to grant the full damages of Ghc5 million cedis for the first applicant and GHc 2 million each for the other 5 applicants.

The judge noted that the applicants did not adduce enough evidence for the court to determine if they merited the damages requested.

The judge thus ordered compensation of GHc 45,000 each for the applicants.