Lawyer, journalist and host of Joy FM’s Newsfile, Samson Lardy Anyenini, has described Parliament’s passage of the Community Service Bill as a landmark reform that will make Ghana’s criminal justice system fairer by reducing the imprisonment of people convicted of minor offences solely because they cannot pay fines.In a personal statement, Samson said the legislation represents a “historic victory for equity, human rights, and the poor man’s law,” arguing that custodial sentences for minor, poverty-related offences have for years contributed to prison overcrowding while breaking up families and livelihoods.He also traced the origins of the legislation to nearly two decades of advocacy by the judiciary, civil society organisations and criminal justice stakeholders. Mr Anyenini said he was privileged to contribute to the campaign through his legal advocacy, including using The Law on JoyNews to support renewed efforts to secure the Bill’s passage.While welcoming Parliament’s approval of the Bill, he urged President John Dramani Mahama to grant it swift assent and called for the immediate establishment of the National Community Service Secretariat and the strengthening of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure the effective implementation of the new law.Below is the full statement by Samson Lardy Anyenini.PERSONAL STATEMENT BY SAMSON LARDY ANYENINI ON THE PASSAGE OF THE COMMUNITY SERVICE BILL: A HISTORIC VICTORY FOR EQUITY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE “POOR MAN’S LAW”The passage of the Community Service Bill by the Parliament of Ghana marks a watershed moment in the evolution of our nation’s criminal jurisprudence. For as long as poverty crimes remain on our statute books, I have called this framework the “poor man’s law.” Globally, the arc of jurisprudence is moving away from those minor offenses that the poorest of our society are routinely thrown into jail for simply because they are unable to pay even the least fines – offences that, invariably, they may be unable to avoid to survive.When our legal system incarcerates a citizen for vagrancy, street hawking, or the minor theft of a bunch of plantain to avoid starving, it ceases to reform; instead, it breaks families, destroys livelihoods, and catastrophically congests our already overburdened prisons. Turning a minor infraction into jail time because of an inability to pay does not serve justice. This legislation is a monumental victory that ensures poverty is no longer a one‑way ticket to a prison cell.I have supported this reform as much as I did the Plea Bargain legislation, which saw quick passage. And like the RTI Bill, for which I was privileged to provide voice, brain, and legwork alongside relevant civil society organizations, this milestone is the culmination of nearly two decades of relentless, multi‑tiered advocacy. The foundation, by my recollection, was laid as far back as 2007, when CSOs such as CDD‑Ghana, working with a forward‑thinking judiciary, prison service and government, embraced the necessity of non‑custodial sentencing nearly twenty years ago. Yet, despite this clear crisis, the middle years were marked by bureaucratic inertia, during which two different bills were shelved and left to gather dust across successive political administrations. The reform was kept alive by rescuers such as the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), whose direct interventions over the last five years, including paying off small fines to secure the immediate release of indigent convicts, ensured that the human face of this crisis remained firmly at the forefront. Finally, the catalyst came through deliberate effort to utilize my weekly legal clinic, The Law show on JoyNews, as the principal vehicle to partner CHRI to pull those shelved bills out of the archives and bring them back to the front burner for a sustained national advocacy campaign.Taking this on as a personal project, I am profoundly grateful for the privilege of contributing directly when former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, offered me the opportunity – not only by accepting written proposals but also by enduring my constant harassment over it. This government and this Parliament deserve high commendation for actualizing a reform that has evaded our criminal justice system for a generation. Both sides of the political aisle have demonstrated true leadership in pushing this through.While the passage of the Bill is a historic triumph, the true measure of its success will lie entirely in its execution.I now respectfully call on H.E. the President of the Republic to grant swift executive assent to this Bill. Beyond assent, the state must move with deliberate speed to ensure that all that is required is done immediately for an effective and efficient implementation of the law. This demands the urgent establishment of the National Community Service Secretariat and the immediate capacity building of our Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to supervise and manage non‑custodial labor uniformly across the country.Ghana has taken a giant leap forward toward a more compassionate, equitable judicial architecture. Let us ensure that the structures we build tomorrow match the noble, restorative intent of this historic law.God bless our homeland Ghana.Samson Lardy Anyenini