Legal practitioner and member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) legal team, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, has called for reforms to Ghana’s bail laws to ensure fairness, clarity, and consistency in the application of bail conditions across different cases.

His comments follow criticism by Nicholas Lenin Anane Agyei, legal counsel for media personality Paul Adom-Otchere, who described the bail conditions imposed by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) as punitive and unreasonable.

The OSP had initially required Mr. Adom-Otchere to produce two landed properties registered in his name as a condition for his release.

Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV on Saturday, August 2, Samoa Addo clarified that bail, by principle, is not a punishment but a legal mechanism to ensure the availability of a suspect during investigations or trial.

However, he acknowledged that the wide discretion currently available to investigative bodies in setting bail terms can sometimes create inconsistencies and perceptions of unfairness.

“In 2025, are we as lawyers all in agreement that our laws, as they stand, can be better reformed?” he asked.

“So we can get to the point where, for each offence, there’s a defined quantum of bail—whether cash, property, or otherwise—so that the process is predictable.”

He argued that codifying bail amounts and conditions for various offences in statute would eliminate the problem of excessive discretion and potential arbitrariness.

“When we have these things finely put in statutes, it will take away the issue of discretion. Because whenever there is discretion, the only remedy you have under our laws is to go to court and argue that the discretion has not been exercised in accordance with law, or you ask for a variation,” he explained.

Referencing the Adom-Otchere case, Samoa Addo noted that when the former Board Chairman of the Ghana Airport Company Limited indicated he could not meet the OSP’s initial bail terms, the office allowed a variation through a third party, enabling him to secure his release.