The ECOWAS Court of Justice has mandated the government of Ghana to pay $75,000 in damages to 30 members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) for their prolonged and unlawful detention.
The ruling, delivered on Friday in Abuja in case no. ECW/CCJ/APP/12/24, determined that the Ghanaian authorities violated the applicants’ fundamental human rights by detaining them for extended periods—some for over a year—without trial or due process.
“Each of the 30 applicants is to receive $2,500 (in Ghanaian Cedis equivalent) as compensation,” the judge stated.
The case was presided over by Justice Ricardo Gonçalves, along with Justices Sengu M. Koroma and Dupe Atoki. The judges ruled that the actions of the Ghanaian government contravened both national and international legal standards, including Article 14(3) of Ghana’s Constitution and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. These provisions guarantee the right to liberty and stipulate that detainees must be presented before a court within 48 hours.
“The applicants were arrested and held for extended periods, some for over a year, without being brought before a court. This is clearly a violation of their right to liberty,” Justice Gonçalves affirmed.
The 30 HSGF members were arrested on May 8, 2019, under Ghana’s 1976 Prohibited Organizations Decree, which bans groups considered a threat to national security. The applicants argued that their arrest and detention were politically motivated and lacked legal justification.
While the Court affirmed its jurisdiction to hear the case, it dismissed the Homeland Study Group Foundation as a party to the proceedings, citing the group’s lack of legal personality due to the absence of registration documents. “No registration documents were presented. Therefore, the Foundation cannot be recognized as a legal entity before this court,” the judgment stated.
However, the court upheld the claims of the 30 individual applicants, concluding that their rights had been violated. It dismissed Ghana’s argument of national security, ruling that “even when national security is cited, detention must comply with the law. Detaining individuals for over a year without trial is unjustifiable.”
The panel also rejected the applicants’ claims of the right to self-determination, stating that neither the Foundation nor its members had the legal standing to make such a claim on behalf of a people or community.
In addition to the compensation, the court ordered the Ghanaian government to either initiate prosecution against the applicants within two weeks or release them unconditionally. All other reliefs sought were dismissed, and both parties were instructed to bear their own legal costs.
The full judgment will be officially issued once the judges sign the document.
In a related development, PUNCH Online reported on Thursday that the same court had also ordered the Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately release Nigerian businessman Moses Abiodun, who has been held in prolonged pretrial detention since 2008 without being formally charged or tried.
