Human Rights Committee

11 7 th session

Summary record of the 3275 th meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Friday, 24 June 2016, at 3 p.m.

Chair:Mr. Salvioli

Contents

Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 40 of the Covenant (continued)

Initial report of Ghana (continued)

The meeting was called to order at 3.05 p.m.

Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 40 of the Covenant (continued)

Initial report of Ghana (continued) (CCPR/C/GHA/1; CCPR/C/GHA/Q/1 and Add.1)

At the invitation of the Chair, the delegation of Ghana took places at the Committee table.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that he wished to state, for the record, that nobody had been executed in Ghana since 1997, not 2013, as had been stated at the previous meeting. He had been unable to confirm reports that 129 people were under a death sentence as of 2015 but would attempt to do so in due course.

Mr. Amankwah (Ghana) said that efforts to set up internal affairs units to investigate incidents of police misconduct had not yielded good results. The Ministry of the Interior, in cooperation with civil society and other relevant stakeholders, had therefore met to draft a position paper on the establishment of an independent police complaints commission. The paper had been submitted for review to the Ghana Police Council. In addition, more training was being provided for officers seeking promotion and for new recruits.

The delay in setting up a complaints commission did not prevent people from submitting complaints against the police to the courts or approaching the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice. The Ministry also facilitated the provision of legal assistance by helping NGOs to assign law students to police stations, where, as part of their law studies, they helped arrested persons understand their legal situation. Efforts had been made to bring the police closer to the community. The focus was on intelligence-gathering, rather than the use of roadblocks, and on pinpointing trouble spots. Police tents had been set up in a number of strategic locations that lacked permanent police stations, and on major highways where the threat of armed robbery was high, night patrols had taken the place of stationary checkpoints. Accounts of police brutality targeting journalists were generally exaggerated.

Ms. Baffoe-Bonnie (Ghana) said that “star class” or “black coat” prisoners did not exercise authority over other prisoners in the place of prison officers. Instead, they were given that status as a means of developing their leadership abilities and promoting their reformation and rehabilitation. Thus, they were role models for other prisoners. Internal mechanisms had been established to discipline “black coat” prisoners who abused other prisoners. In accordance with the regulations of the Ghana Prisons Service, investigations of complaints of torture or ill-treatment were to be conducted by independent commissions. Steps had been taken to ensure that prisoners were not actually flogged, despite the existence of an obsolete regulation that permitted that form of punishment. That and other obsolete regulations were currently under review.

There were relatively few reports of torture in the country’s prisons, despite their overcrowding, because prison officers were well aware that torture was simply not tolerated. Efforts to ease overcrowding included the planned construction of a prison for pretrial detainees and the implementation of sentencing guidelines which directed judges to clear the docket of cases involving minor offences within a set time frame. In addition, the Justice for All Programme was designed to ensure that persons in pretrial detention for an extended period of time were given a fair hearing. In some cases, courts had been set up in the prisons themselves.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that there had been cases in which police officers in Ghana had been prosecuted. He would provide specific information on those cases at a later date. The Parliament of Ghana had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the previous day.

Ms. Quartey (Ghana) said that the next step was to draft a comprehensive piece of legislation that would define torture, prohibit the defence of superior orders and authorize the establishment of a national preventive mechanism. Work could begin on that legislation, which would probably be drafted by the Ministry of Justice, now that both the Convention against Torture and the Optional Protocol had been ratified.

Ms. Baffoe-Bonnie (Ghana) said that judges were required by law to consider the merits of an accused person’s claim that his or her statements had been made under torture. Any statements that were found to have been coerced were inadmissible in court. Police officers who coerced accused persons into making statements were subject to internal disciplinary procedures or to penalties handed down by the courts.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that most of the country’s prayer camps, which were used as centres for the treatment of persons with mental disabilities, were run by religious groups, and those groups would resist any attempt to require them to register the camps. As there were growing concerns about those camps, however, the Government would have to address the issue of registration at some point in the future.

Mr. de Frouville said that he would welcome comments from the delegation on how the State party intended to go about incorporating the Covenant into the domestic legal framework and what it had done to raise awareness of the Covenant and other international human rights instruments to which it was a party. He wondered why Ghana had not ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, which required each State party to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction, and would like to know whether the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice could take action proprio motu in cases of alleged human rights violations.

With reference to paragraph 16 of the list of issues, the Committee was concerned that the legal provision whereby an arrested person had to be brought before a judge within 48 hours was apparently not being respected due, at least in part, to the fact that the police tended to arrest persons at weekends, when the courts were not in session. He wished to know what was being done to improve the Legal Aid Scheme, which currently had only 14 lawyers. Were steps being taken to encourage lawyers to provide legal aid services and to increase their remuneration for doing so? The Committee would be interested to learn why arrested persons who wished to see a doctor had to do so in the presence of a government-appointed physician. The Special Rapporteur on torture had stated in his follow-up report (A/HRC/31/57/Add.2) that certain persons in pretrial detention or serving prison sentences had simply been “forgotten”. One man had reportedly been held in pretrial detention for more than 20 years. Without a rigorous system for registering arrests and monitoring the legality of detention, the existing habeas corpus law could be rendered ineffective. The Justice for All Programme was working to improve the situation, but he was concerned that it seemed not to be receiving any government funding.

Regarding paragraphs 17 and 18, he would appreciate more information about the difficulties that were apparently being encountered in the implementation of the 2012 Mental Health Act, particularly as concerned the treatment of psychiatric patients. According to information made available to the Committee, the country’s three mental hospitals were seriously overcrowded and served by just 12 psychiatrists. He also wished to know why mental health treatment was not covered by health insurance and what measures the State party was taking to combat societal prejudice against persons with mental health problems. He wondered what progress had been made in attempts to ease prison overcrowding and specifically what effect the privately funded Efiase Project was having in that regard. He would like to hear the delegation’s comments on what appeared to be a peculiar characteristic of the institutional structure in Ghana whereby the Minister of Justice was also the Attorney General and on the possible conflict of interests that might arise if it became necessary to prosecute another person who held ministerial office.

With regard to the questions posed in paragraph 19 of the list of issues, he wished to know what measures had been put in place to bridge the gap between legislation and practice in connection with the problem of child labour and whether the anti-poverty strategy launched in 2007 — which involved providing subsidies to families if they sent their children to school on a regular basis — had been effective. What steps were being taken to modify the belief systems that shored up the practice of trokosi, which amounted to ritual servitude? The State party was to be commended for having adopted the 2005 Human Trafficking Act and for having signed the two Optional Protocols to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. He would welcome detailed statistical information on their implementation, particularly as regarded the prosecution of traffickers, and on the work of the interministerial committee on human trafficking. Did the authorities intend to offer training for stakeholders in that regard and to build more shelters for trafficking victims?

Mr. Muhumuza said that he wished to know what short-term measures had been taken to assist refugees and internally displaced persons. It would also be interesting to know what progress had been made towards finding a longer-term solution for the problems faced by the latter group and whether efforts had been made to help asylum seekers meet the requirements for refugee status. He wondered, for instance, whether they were entitled to free legal representation and whether they were made aware of the resources available to them.

He would welcome comments from the delegation on the measures that were in place to ensure that juvenile offenders were granted their right to a fair trial. He would like to hear the delegation’s views on reports that the scarcity of juvenile judges in such cities as Accra led to lengthy waits for trials and that minors were often interrogated by the police in the absence of their parents or counsel. He wondered what measures were in place to ensure that juvenile courts were operational, that legal representation was provided, free of charge, if necessary, and that correctional homes were built. Lastly, he wished to know whether the Parliament of Ghana was committed to adopting the Right to Information Bill, which had been before it for more than 10 years.

Mr. Bouzid, referring to paragraph 22 of the list of issues, said that, despite efforts by the State party to sensitize people to the harmful effects of corporal punishment, the Committee remained concerned by the fact that it was prohibited by law only as a penalty for the commission of a crime and thus was not prohibited in homes or schools. Indeed, the 1998 Children’s Act made provision for “reasonable” and “justifiable” punishment. Reports suggested that the vast majority of children in Ghana were subject to some form of corporal punishment, and the matter had aroused the concern of other treaty bodies, notably the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Ghana had accepted recommendations emerging from the universal periodic review to revise its laws regarding corporal punishment and he wished to know what progress had been made in that connection.

Ms. Waterval said that she remained concerned about the lack of information concerning the situation of children in the so-called “witch camps”. She also wished to know what programmes were in place to reform perpetrators of domestic violence. Regarding paragraph 25 of the list of issues, she would appreciate further clarification about what the State party’s replies described as “clashes between the media and other bodies” caused by “institutional differences”. Had the Ghana Journalists Association, as stated, contributed to a document to provide guidance to the police force in its dealings with the media?

Mr. Iwasawa said that he wished to know if the legal concept of “unnatural carnal knowledge” applied to same-sex couples. Could the delegation comment on assaults by the police and members of the military on journalists, which appeared to take place on a scale greater than that thus far acknowledged by the State party?

With regard to the right to privacy referred to in paragraph 21 of the list of issues, he would be interested in further details about procedures for the storage and examination of intercepted data and wished to know whether the persons concerned were notified that their communications had been intercepted once an investigation had been completed. What steps did the State take to prevent private individuals from making secret tape recordings of the communications of others and to prevent the media from broadcasting such material?

In connection with the issues raised in paragraph 24, he welcomed the systematic efforts of the Ghana Refugee Board to register refugee children born in Ghana. However, under the 1965 Births and Deaths Registration Act, children born outside Ghana could not be registered. That provision did not appear to be compatible with the Covenant, and it was his understanding that the Committee on the Rights of the Child had concluded that it was not in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child either. He was aware that efforts were being made to improve the birth registration system, especially in rural areas, but in some cases the process still apparently took as long as a full year.

Concerning paragraph 26, the Committee would be interested to hear how information about the Covenant and the Optional Protocols was disseminated in Ghana and whether the Ministry of Justice, the Commission on Human Rights and NGOs were involved in that process. In particular, members would be interested to learn the extent to which the procedure for submitting communications was known and whether civil society had been involved in preparing the report.

Mr. Rodríguez-Rescia said that the duty of States parties was to fulfil their obligations in good faith. Human rights issues, such as the death penalty, should not be decided by referendum. Nor was it sufficient to simply criminalize female genital mutilation; educational campaigns were equally important, and he was keen to know what the State party was doing in that regard.

Mr. Shany said that he would be interested to hear what plans the State party had to address the issue of polygamy over the long term. He would like to draw the State party’s attention to the Committee’s general comment No. 28, in which it had stated that polygamy was incompatible with the principle of gender equality. That was all the more true when it was unidirectional and only men, but not women, could take multiple spouses.

Sir Nigel Rodley said that he welcomed the information that a “mini-trial” system was used to identify and reject confessions obtained through torture or ill-treatment. He wondered whether the system applied only to confessions or also to other statements obtained under duress. If unlawful methods were found to have been used, it was right that the persons who had used those methods should be referred to the prosecutor’s office, and he wondered why that was considered a novelty. He wished to know which body was responsible for investigating and prosecuting such offences. He would be interested to learn more about the national preventive mechanism and whether its visits to places of deprivation of liberty included police facilities where persons were detained and questioned. Could the delegation give assurances to the Committee that the mechanism would be properly funded?

The meeting was suspended at 4.25 p.m. and resumed at 4.50 p.m.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana), turning to a question raised by Mr. de Frouville on the prosecution of government ministers by the Attorney General, said that, under the Constitution, the Attorney General was the Government’s main adviser on all State affairs and was responsible for prosecuting all criminal offences. Ever since independence in 1957, the role of Attorney General had been combined with that of Minister of Justice. On the rare occasions that government ministers had been prosecuted, the Attorney General had not had any conflict of interest. Following a recent constitutional review, it had been concluded that the dual role of the Attorney General did not constitute a problem.

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection had done a great deal to raise public awareness of mental illness and to combat its stigmatization through the introduction of specific policies. However, the process of changing deeply rooted beliefs was a slow one.

Ghana could not become a party to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant until the public had approved the abolition of the death penalty through a referendum and the Constitution had been duly amended. The death penalty served to dissuade members of the armed forces from carrying out military coups.

The Supreme Court ruling in the Anane case had addressed an issue of conflict of interest. It had not sought to restrict the powers of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice; the Commission retained wide-ranging constitutional and statutory powers to investigate cases of corruption and abuse of power. The Constitutional Review Commission had recommended that the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice should be granted the power to initiate investigations on its own initiative.

Ms. Obuobisa (Ghana) said that the Juvenile Justice Act was in accord with best international practice. The Act provided for due consideration of the best interests of the juvenile and promoted non-custodial sentences, such as community service. It provided for prompt and fair trials and limited the time that a defendant could be held in remand custody to three months in almost all cases and to six months under the most extreme circumstances. According to the Criminal Procedure Act, the Juvenile Justice Act and domestic jurisprudence, the burden of proof fell upon the prosecution in all cases. Defendants were free to remain silent throughout their trials if they so wished. Each district of the country had its own court, and those courts heard juvenile justice cases on specific dates. There were several juvenile justice courts in Accra. Under the Juvenile Justice Act, juvenile detainees were to be released into the custody of a parent or a guardian. Panels composed of social welfare officers and magistrates ensured that juvenile defendants were only brought before the courts in the presence of a guardian if the guardian could be located; if he or she could not be found, then those panels represented the juvenile defendant’s interests.

The maternal mortality rate had fallen, but Ghana was not yet in a position to meet the target for the fifth Millennium Development Goal. Abortion was legal in cases of rape, defilement and incest when it was requested by the guardian, victim or next of kin, when the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl was at risk, or when there was a risk that the child might be born with, or develop, a serious physical abnormality or disease.

Mr. Appreku (Ghana) said that Ghana had a long-standing open-door policy on refugees. Thousands of Liberian refugees had chosen to integrate into the local population. An agreement on voluntary repatriation had been concluded with Côte d’Ivoire. Ghana issued refugees with travel documents free of charge in accordance with the recommendations of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, was working with the other member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to tackle statelessness and the issue of refugee children born outside of Ghana, and was party to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child of the African Union, under which the country had made a commitment to ensure that no child was born stateless. Under the Constitution, stateless children separated from their parents were automatically given Ghanaian citizenship. Although no specific legislation was currently in place on the registration of children born outside Ghana, in practice all refugee children were issued with documents by the national authorities.

As to the issue of slavery, an ECOWAS peer review had identified a number of gaps in the national plan of action on child labour. Consultations had then been held and the plan amended to make it more effective. Investigations had shown that many of the children allegedly working on cacao plantations along the border with Côte d’Ivoire were actually assisting their parents and were also attending school. Over 2,000 child labourers had been rescued from the mining industry and over 300 families had received income support in order to ensure that they did not need to send their children to work as miners. Community-based child protection teams had been set up in mining communities.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that there had been some cases in which police officers had deliberately arrested suspects on a Friday in order to avoid having to bring them before a judge within 48 hours of arrest, as required by the Constitution, so that the police would have more time to collect preliminary evidence to justify the suspect’s detention. The Police Council had done a great deal to discourage that practice, which was not, in any case, widespread, and warnings had been issued to the police officers concerned. There had been a number of cases in which defendants had been brought before a judge within 48 hours of arrest but had been unable to access legal assistance. There were currently only 14 legal aid lawyers in the entire country. The Legal Aid Scheme was being overhauled, and there were plans to transform it into a legal aid commission that would receive financial support directly from an independent fund. Detainees without access to legal counsel could not be brought to trial and, consequently, were sometimes held on remand for long periods of time. Under the Justice for All Programme, investigations were being carried out into the legality of the detention of remand prisoners, and a number of detainees had been released owing to a lack of evidence. There had been a few cases of individuals successfully suing for compensation for unlawful detention under article 14 (5) of the Constitution.

The Government was working to ensure that the Right to Information Bill would be approved by Parliament and enacted within the very near future. That bill was important because it would clarify which categories of information would be exempt from disclosure provisions.

Ms. Obuobisa (Ghana) said that, since the time that the Ministry of Justice had launched the Justice for All Programme in 2008, the judiciary, the Attorney General, the Prison Service and the Police Service had become involved and an inter-agency coordination committee had been set up for the Programme. The Programme would continue to operate regardless of the level of funds received from private or other donors. Thanks to the Programme, steps had been taken to ensure that nobody was placed in remand custody without a warrant. Those warrants had to be renewed by the courts at regular intervals, which helped to ensure that detainees were not held on remand for unnecessarily long periods of time.

Ms. Baffoe-Bonnie (Ghana) said that the long-term plans for tackling the problem of prison overcrowding provided for the expansion of existing facilities and for the preparation of a bill on alternative sentencing. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was currently helping the Ministry of Justice to build up a database that was to be shared by all national judicial bodies, and standard operating procedures on inter-agency relations and training courses for officials were being developed, along with guidelines on immediate intervention in cases where the trial process was delayed. The Chief Justice had introduced mechanisms that enabled judges to set aside time to clear their existing backlog of criminal cases.

Mr. Amankwah (Ghana) said that Project Efiase was designed to raise funds from the general public for a 10-year strategic plan developed by the Prison Service. The plan called for capacity-building activities for officials, the provision of rehabilitation equipment for inmates, the modernization of the unit that provided prisoners with basic agricultural training and the expansion of existing facilities.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that the recently built Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital and the Pantang mental health facility in Accra were not overcrowded. The Children’s Act was in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Corporal punishment in schools was expressly prohibited by national legislation and persons suspected of having committed that offence were arrested and prosecuted. The delegation did not currently have access to any information on the situation of children in witch camps; however, steps would be taken to provide the Committee with details on that subject.

It was often difficult for women victims of domestic violence to testify against their partners in court. In some cases, family members or tribal chiefs interceded and convinced women to withdraw their charges

As for the question that had been asked about the provision on “unnatural carnal knowledge” in the Criminal Offences Act, he would try to provide some clarification. In Ghana, consent was required for any type of sexual relations. Non-consensual sex was considered to be rape. The law did not distinguish between heterosexual contact and same-sex contact; they were treated in the same manner. Children under the age of 16 could not give consent to any form of sexual contact.

Mr. Amankwah (Ghana) said that, whenever incidents of police brutality were brought to the attention of the authorities, they were dealt with in line with established procedures. In addition, private individuals could sue the police for violating their human rights.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that a question had been raised in the list of issues about safeguards to protect people’s privacy and reports of secret tape recordings of Ghanaian politicians. The Government of Ghana did not engage in wiretapping of any kind; those recordings had been made by journalists. The persons whose conversations had been taped of course felt that their right to privacy had been violated. The Electronic Communications Act prohibited the interception of any kind of electronic communication, whether private or public.

Mr. Osei-Owusu(Ghana) said that a question had been asked earlier about the lack of awareness-raising campaigns to teach people about the harmful effects of female genital mutilation. In fact, the Government had carried out a large-scale information campaign, and the practice of female genital mutilation had been virtually eliminated, as the portion of the female population who had undergone mutilation now stood at 3 per cent. Ghana was committed to eliminating all forms of that practice entirely.

As to the matter of polygamy, there were three forms of legal marriage in Ghana. The first, monogamy, was practised mostly by Christians; the second was the form of polygamy that was practised primarily by Muslims; the third was customary marriage, which was another form of polygamy. Act No. 29 of 1960 criminalized bigamy. If a person in a monogamous marriage married another person, or if a person in a customary marriage made a contract of monogamous marriage with another person, those were both violations of the Act. Only one person had been convicted of bigamy, and that had occurred quite recently. A major cultural change would have to occur in Ghana before the people would accept any prohibition of polygamy. If the authorities sought to ban polygamy at the present time on the grounds that it contravened international law, it would be seen as an attempt to ban part of the people’s cultural heritage.

Mr. Appreku (Ghana) said that, while the African Union Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa did not state that polygamy should be abolished, it did say that monogamy was the preferred form of marriage. That provision had met with resistance in Ghana and, as a result, the Protocol had been stalled in Parliament for many years. Eventually, however, it had been ratified. That outcome indicated a shift in values.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that he had observed that fewer young people were entering polygamous marriages than had been the case when he was growing up. Monogamy was still seen, however, as a “foreign invasion”.

Mr. Appreku (Ghana) said that, as Mr. de Frouville had pointed out, Ghana was struggling to find a balance between tradition and modernity. It had not yet reached the point where it could declare that polygamy was a violation of the principle of equality between the sexes or accept that it contravened international law.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana), turning to a question that had been raised about the use of confessions or other evidence in court that had been extracted under duress, said that any statement ascertained to have been obtained by unlawful means, including deceit or other inducements, would be thrown out of court. If it came to the attention of the Attorney General that a police officer had used coercion of any kind to extract information, the incident would be investigated and the suspect prosecuted.

Mr. Appreku (Ghana) said that it was not yet possible to answer the question that had been asked as to whether the national preventive mechanism would be attached to the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice. In April 2016, the Government had hosted a seminar in Accra at which there had been a discussion on best practices in the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. Now that the ratification process had been completed, the authorities would pursue consultations with other countries regarding the most suitable implementation model.

The follow-up visit of the Special Rapporteur on torture to Ghana in October 2015 had been announced on short notice, and the Special Rapporteur had only had time to visit Accra. Unfortunately, the figures he had used in his report had therefore been hastily compiled and there were some discrepancies. His delegation would like to invite the Committee to refer to the response of Ghana to the Special Rapporteur’s follow-up report.

Ghana had adopted a law which defined a family as a unit that included a child; that provision should help to resolve the problem surrounding the registration of children of refugees born outside of Ghana. The Government had also signed a declaration, along with Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone, in which it had pledged to end statelessness and to ratify the statelessness conventions.

Mr. Ben Achour, noting that the delegation had referred to monogamy as a “foreign invasion”, said that he was fundamentally opposed to that notion. Monogamy represented progress in the evolution of the human spirit. On Muslim soil, the effort to introduce monogamy and to ban polygamy had begun long before any foreign intervention had occurred.

Sir Nigel Rodley said that he was grateful to the delegation for having responded to earlier questions about the follow-up visit of the Special Rapporteur on torture to Ghana, but the fact that the visit had been unplanned did not mean that the findings were necessarily erroneous; on the contrary, the information gathered in such a way was likely to be more credible. He looked forward to reading the response of Ghana, which he would take with all due seriousness. It would be unusual, however, for the Special Rapporteur to have happened upon an uncoordinated, unplanned series of untrue allegations of ill-treatment. The Committee would be grateful for any further clarifications on that matter that the delegation might wish to provide in writing within the next 48 hours.

Mr. de Frouville said that he would appreciate receiving detailed information in writing on the rate of maternal deaths attributable to illegal abortions; he had been provided with information which indicated that the figure was 11 per cent. He would like to know whether there had been any reports of abuse by the so-called “black coats” and what measures, if any, had been taken to prevent such abuse. He was pleased to learn that the Government of Ghana planned to ratify the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions, and he looked forward to learning how it intended to implement those conventions and integrate them into the domestic legal order.

Mr. Ayine (Ghana) said that his Government was committed to protecting and promoting human rights. Ghana was a vibrant country that actively protected the rights of all its citizens and residents; unfortunately, it also faced financial constraints that prevented it from doing all that it wished to do in that respect. As Mr. Frouville had observed, Ghana had shown that it had the political will to protect human rights, despite many obstacles. His Government would answer the remaining follow-up questions in writing within the next 48 hours.

The Chair suggested that the State party should pay special attention to the report of the Special Rapporteur on torture, in particular paragraphs 68, 69 and 70, on psychiatric institutions, and paragraphs 71 and 72, on the so-called “prayer camps”. He was confident that Ghana would continue to make progress in its efforts to protect human rights.

The meeting rose at 6.10 p.m.