DASU vs. THE REPUBLIC

This appeal raises a small but very important technical point of law and it can be posed thus: Where an accused person is tried before a district magistrate and he is found guilty and convicted but he is committed to a circuit court under section 178 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1960 (Act 30), for a sentence does an appeal from the sentence or conviction of the circuit judge lie to the High Court or the Court of Appeal? There were four persons committed by the district court magistrate, his worship Mr. W. K. Anderson after trial and conviction of certain crimes to the Circuit Court, Ho, presided over by his honour Judge E. K. Jones-Mensah (as he then was) for sentence. The learned circuit court judge passed various sentences on the four prisoners as follows: the first accused was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour concurrently; the second accused was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with hard labour concurrently; the third accused was sentenced to...