AWUAH
V.
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

COURT: In its judgment read by van Lare J.S.C. the Supreme Court held that the power of ordering recovery of property or its value is now regulated by section 147 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1960 (Act 30), where the court can be competent to do so only on the application of the victim, and even then there is no longer power to order the seizure of the convicted person’s property and sale simpliciter. The new enactment requires the court to “make a decree for the return by the offender to the victim, of the property not recovered and for payment, in default, of the value of any property not returned.” One would therefore expect the decree to state the amount in respect of which execution may be levied and there is provision for enforcement of such a decree as if it were one in an action between the victim of the offence as plaintiff and the offender as defendant.

Trial courts are therefore warned not to direct seizure and sale of property of convicted persons simpliciter on their ow…