For many years in Ghana, when you are arrested without cause, detained, paraded, and later freed because there was no evidence, you just go home and thank God.
You say: “God has vindicated me.”
And the police officer who arrested you goes back to the station. The complainant who lied against you goes back to his shop. The prosecutor who pressed for remand goes back to his office. Nobody pays for your disgrace.
That era must end.
If Ghana is to be a true rule of law country, citizens must start suing for malicious prosecution — not just against the State, but against the investigator, the prosecutor who acted with malice, and the complainant who set the law in motion.
What Is Malicious Prosecution Under Ghanaian Law?
Malicious prosecution is not just “I was arrested and later freed.” The law is more serious than that.
To succeed in Ghana, you must prove four things, as our Supreme Court has held in cases like Cape Coast Oil Mills v. Barclays Bank and Mensah v. Electoral Commission principles:
1. That you were prosecuted: Someone made a complaint to the police, you were arrested, charged, and put before a court. An invitation alone is not enough. You must have been taken through the criminal process.
2. That the prosecution ended in your favour: The court acquitted and discharged you, the Attorney General filed nolle prosequi, or the case was struck out for want of prosecution. If the case is still pending, you cannot sue.
3. That there was no reasonable and probable cause: This is the heart. That the investigator did not read Act 29. That no reasonable officer would have charged you based on the facts. That a simple debt was called fraud. That a civil land matter was called stealing.
4. That it was actuated by malice: That the person who caused your arrest did not want justice, but wanted to punish you, disgrace you, force you to pay money, or use the police to settle a personal score.
If you prove these four, you are entitled to damages.
Who Do You Sue?
This is where many Ghanaians get it wrong. They think they can only sue the Attorney General.
No. In Ghana, you can sue three categories of people:
1. The Complainant — The Person Who Caused The Arrest:
This is the landlord, the business partner, the ex-girlfriend, the Facebook rival who went to the police station to report you with lies. If he knew he was lying, and he set the police in motion against you, he is liable.
Under Ghanaian law, he cannot hide behind “I only reported to police.” If you gave false information to cause arrest, you are liable.
2. The Investigator / Police Officer:
The police officer is not a robot. He has discretion under the Police Service Act. He must investigate. He must read the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and ask: Do the facts fit the charge?
If he arrests you because the complainant is his friend, or because you refused to give him money at the station, or without any attempt to verify, he has acted without reasonable and probable cause. He can be sued personally for damages alongside the State.
3. The Prosecutor:
This is controversial, but the law is moving. A prosecutor enjoys immunity when he is doing his job in good faith in court. But when a prosecutor acts with malice — when he knows there is no evidence, when he suppresses exculpatory evidence, when he keeps pressing a judge to remand you while telling lies that “investigation is ongoing” when he knows there is no investigation — he loses that immunity.
Recent High Court decisions are beginning to hold that malicious prosecution can lie against prosecutors who act outside their proper duties.
How Much Can You Get?
The court can award you three types of damages:
– General Damages: For your shame, for sleeping in cells, for the media publication, for anxiety, for loss of reputation.
– Special Damages: For the lawyer you hired, the business you lost, the rent you could not pay because you were in custody.
– Exemplary Damages: To punish the officer or complainant, to send a signal that “you cannot use arrest as a weapon.”
In 2022, a Ghanaian court awarded over GH₵200,000 to a man who was maliciously prosecuted for fraud when it was a mere civil matter. In other cases, GH₵100,000, GH₵150,000 have been awarded.
Money cannot clean your name, but it makes the system careful.
What Should You Do If You Are A Victim?
1. Keep Everything: Keep your charge sheet, your bail receipt, your remand warrant, the judgment that freed you. These are your evidence.
2. Get The Full Docket: Apply through your lawyer for the certified true copy of the proceedings that ended in your favour.
3. Write To CHRAJ and PIPS: Before suing, petition the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) and CHRAJ. Their reports help your civil case.
4. Sue Within The Limitation Period: You have six years to sue for malicious prosecution, but time starts counting from when you were freed, not when you were arrested.
5. Sue The Right Parties: Sue the complainant, sue the investigator by name, and sue the Attorney General as representing the State. Let the court apportion liability.
The Way Forward
The IGP and the Attorney General must also start punishing within. When a court finds that a prosecution was malicious, that finding must trigger internal disciplinary action against the investigator and the prosecutor.
Because as long as we leave malicious prosecution unpunished, the phrase “I will arrest you when you come to Ghana” will remain the most powerful law in Ghana — more powerful than Act 29.
And in a democracy, no citizen should have more power to arrest than the law itself.
If they arrest you maliciously, don’t just thank God and go home.
Go to court and sue them. That is how you protect the next poor Ghanaian who cannot afford a lawyer.
Alexander Afriyie, supervising editor, ghanacrimereport.com and ghanatalk.com