Wearing of fake military uniform, not criminal-Law student avers

A law student at the University of Cape Coast has indicated that wearing fake security service uniforms is not legally punishable.

According to Ismail Oppong Kwarteng, it is not criminal to don uniforms of the various security services indicating that it could only be punishable when the uniform is found to be authentic .

Defending his assertion, he said if a person is found wearing a fake uniform, the culprit could defend himself in court with ‘mistake of the fact’ to avoid punishment under Section 29 of the Criminal and Other Offences ACT (1960) ACT 29 which states that (1) A person shall not be punished for any act, which, by reason of ignorance or mistake of fact in good faith, he believes to be lawful.

The ACT also states that a person shall not, except as in this Code otherwise expressly provided, be exempt from liability to punishment for any act on the ground of ignorance that the act is prohibited by law.

“There is the mistake of the law and the mistake of the fact which an individual can use as defence in court. The suspect can tell the court he did not know that he could be punished by the law if he wore a military uniform to evade punishment,” he said.

Mr. Kwarteng was commenting on the imprisonment of a young man who wore a military uniform and was apprehended in a vehicle by an army officer who was also onboard the car.

The suspect was jailed for eight months in default of a court fine of Ghc 2,400.

Though he indicated that his intention is not to criticize the judge for the sentence he handed out, “ I feel eight months is too much.”

The discussion on the matter under, CCF’s Legal Education programme, a newly introduced TV series on Crime Check TV GH has been necessitated by the persistent jailing of people who commit petty offences and the assault people face for wearing security service’s uniforms.