A Ghanaian legal practitioner, Kofi Bentil has revealed that the police does not have the right to impound a vehicle just because the driver could not produce a license on the sport.
Though the legal luminary acknowledged that carrying a photocopy of one’s driving license is unlawful yet maintained that the police can request for a driver’s original license without necessarily impounding the vehicle.
The pointed out that the law in Ghana permits a driver to produce the license within 24 hours when needed.
‘’The law in Ghana does not allow you (the police) to impound cars because the driver does not have a license on him or her. The car is not evidence in this contest.
There is no probable cause or justification for impounding the vehicle”.
The Vice President of Imani Africa made the revelation in his Facebook post cited by Africa Express online.
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He contended that the police cannot continue infringing on people’s rights knowing they don’t have authority to do so.
He called on the leadership of the Ghana Police Service to operate within the confines of the law
He warned that if police personnel in the course of enforcing the law continue to infringe on people’s rights, the service could be sued for damages ‘’for distress and loss of use” for impounding someone’s without regard to what the law says.
He advised the Ghana Police Service to have a system that can take data of persons and request them to report at a given police station with driving documents within the period that the law requires, adding that the police can cause the arrest of such person if he fails to make himself available.
Mr. Kofi Bentil cautioned that continuously impounding vehicle in this situation amounts to “Breaking the law to enforce the law’’.
