On 1 November 2026, the Ghana Police Service rolled outTRAFFITECH-GH, its automated traffic enforcement system. Cameras now detect speeding, and motorists receive an Electronic Notice of Violation (“ENV”) by SMS, with a fine to pay within 14 days.
The first phase covers speeding only. Red-light running, unlawful overtaking, seatbelt, licence, insurance and roadworthiness offences are to follow. This goal deserves support.
According to the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), speeding alone accounts for 62 of every 100 road crash deaths in Ghana. Removing roadside cash encounters with officers also resolvess a long-standing source of petty corruption.
But good intentions do not settle constitutional questions. In our criminal jurisprudence, the burden of proving an offence lies on the prosecution, and the power to find guilt and impose punishment belongs to the courts. TRAFFITECH-GH reverses that order: the Executive, through the Police, detects the offence, fixes the penalty, and demands payment, and the citizen must take the first step to be heard.
My argument is narrow. Fixed-penalty systems are not unconstitutional in themselves, and many democracies use them lawfully. TRAFFITECH-GH, as currently designed, raises serious concerns under Articles 19 and 125 of the 1992 Constitution forthree reasons: who decides contested notices, the penalty imposed for default without any hearing, and liability attached to the registered owner rather than the proven driver.
How TRAFFITECH-GH works
The legal framework is the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2025 (“Act 1153”) and the Road Traffic Regulations, 2026 (“L.I. 2519”). Regulation 242 of L.I 2519 provides for automated road traffic offences and fines. The system’s operation, as published by the Police, runs in five steps:
1. Fixed, mobile and in-vehicle cameras, sensors and laser speed devices capture the vehicle and the alleged offence.
2. The evidence goes to a back office, where officers validate it and draw ownership data from the DVLA and the National Insurance Commission.
3. An ENV is sent by SMS to the registered owner of the vehicle, stating the offence, location, time, and fine.
4. The recipient has 14 days to pay, through the ghana.gov.gh portal, mobile money, or card, or to contest the notice online.
5. A recipient who does neither incurs an additional 1% of the original fine for each day of default.
To contest, the motorist starts online, selects an MTTD regional police station and a hearing date, and MTTD confirms by SMS. Because the hearing is conducted by the same police unit that issued the charge, the process offends the rule against bias (nemo judex in causa sua), a core rule of natural justice.
The constitutional baseline
Four provisions frame the analysis.
• Article 19(1) guarantees a person charged with a criminal offence a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court.
• Article 19(2)(c) presumes that a person is innocent until proved or pleads guilty. The burden of proof rests on the prosecution throughout.
• Article 125(3) vests judicial power in the Judiciary and provides that neither the President nor Parliament, nor any organ or agency of either, shall have or be given final judicial power.
• Article 23 requires administrative bodies and officials to act fairly and reasonably, and gives an aggrieved person the right to seek redress before a court or tribunal.
Speeding under L.I. 2519 is an offence, not a civil wrong. The Regulations themselves speak of offences, fines and, for some conduct, imprisonment. Once the State chooses the criminal label, it must accept the criminal safeguards that come with it. It cannot call conduct an offence for deterrence and then treat the penalty as a mere administrative charge to avoid Article 19.
Concern 1: Who decides a contested notice?
The published guidance directs a motorist who disputes an ENV to choose an MTTD regional police station and a hearing date. If that hearing is conducted by police officers, the same institution that detected the offence, validated the evidence and fixed the fine would also decide the challenge. That would be the Executive acting as investigator, prosecutor and judge in its own cause. It would offend the rule against bias, which Article 23 imports into administrative action, and would fall short of Article 19(1)’s guarantee that a person charged with a criminal offence receives a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court.
The Police have said a motorist need not go to court unless he wishes to contest. If a contested ENV is in fact referred to a District Court for trial, this concern largely falls away, because the court retains final judicial power under Article 125(3). Act 1153 and Regulation 242 of L.I 2519 must therefore be read closely. Theconstitutionality of the scheme hinges on a single question: is the station hearing a step before court, or a replacement for it
Concern 2: Punishment for silence
The strongest objection is the default surcharge. A motorist who neither pays nor contests within 14 days incurs an additional 1% of the fine for every day of default. No one has proved the offence. No court has found guilt. No plea has been entered.
A fixed penalty is defensible as an offer. The motorist pays a set amount, and in return the State does not prosecute. The default surcharge is a different matter. It is an additional sanction that grows automatically, imposed by the Executive on a person who has neither admitted the offence nor been heard.
Under Article 19(2)(c), silence is not a plea of guilty. The constitutional default, where a person does not accept a fixed penalty, should be a summons and a trial in which the prosecution bears the burden of proof. It should not be an escalating debt.
Concern 3: The owner is not always the driver
A camera photographs a vehicle, not a person. TRAFFITECH-GH sends the ENV to whoever appears on the DVLA register. The MTTD has openly warned that a seller who has not transferred ownership will keep receiving tickets for the buyer’s offences.
In practice, this treats registration as proof of guilt. In a country where vehicles change hands informally, are driven by employees, family members and commercial drivers, and are often sold without prompt re-registration, that presumption will frequently be wrong. The burden of disproving it falls on the citizen.
Other jurisdictions handle this by requiring the registered keeper to name the driver, then directing the notice to that person. The European Court of Human Rights in the case of O’Halloran and Francis v United Kingdom (2007) (Applications nos. 15809/02 and 25624/02) upheld that the registered keeper names the driver.Ghana’s scheme should do the same, rather than fixing liability on the owner by default.
Concern 4: Delegated power and personal data
Two further questions deserve attention.
Ultra Vires: A Legislative Instrument is valid only within the power its parent Act confers. If Act 1153 authorises fixed penalties but not a self-executing daily surcharge, or not police adjudication of disputes, those parts of L.I. 2519 are ultra vires regardless of any constitutional argument.
Data Protection: The system links cameras to DVLA and National Insurance Commission records and identifies citizens by location and time. Article 18(2) protects privacy, and the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) governs how such data is collected, shared and retained. The public has the right to know who processes the images, how long they keep them, and what happens when the system errs.
The State’s answer, and what other courts have said
The State’s best reply is that no one is forced out of court. On this view, an ENV is an offer to settle liability without a conviction. A motorist who pays the fine waives trial voluntarily, much as an accused may plead guilty, and one who disputes it may contest.
That choice between paying and contesting already exist in our statutes under Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2180).Regulation 157 of L.I 2180 makes certain offences liable to a spot fine, and, as far as I am aware, the provision has never been struck down or repealed.
Comparative law points both ways:
• Kenya, 2018. In a challenge to the Traffic (Minor Offences) Rules, Justice John Mativo upheld instant fines, holding that they save time for offenders and the justice system and serve to curb corruption.
• Kenya, 2026. In March 2026, the High Court in Nairobi suspended the automated Instant Fines Traffic Management System, restraining penalties generated through algorithmic or automated systems pending a full hearing. The petitions raise fair hearing, fair administrative action, privacy, and procurement.
• United Kingdom. Camera offences begin with a notice to the registered keeper, who must name the driver. The driver then receives a conditional offer, and non-payment leads to prosecution in court. For fixed penalties issued in person, an unpaid penalty can be registered as a fine increased by 50%, but only after a period in which the motorist may request a court hearing. Any comparison should acknowledge that the UK tolerates an uplift, but only where a route to court was offered first.
The comparative lesson is consistent. Courts uphold fixed penalties where paying is a genuine choice and declining to pay leads to a court. They grow wary where automated detection, executive adjudication, or escalating surcharges for non-payment underminethat choice. TRAFFITECH-GH should be measured against that standard: does a motorist who disputes a notice retain a real, accessible route to an independent court?
Fixing the scheme without abandoning it
TRAFFITECH-GH can be saved, and it should be. Five changes would bring it within the Constitution:
6. Route every contested ENV to a court. A station-level review may filter obvious errors, but the motorist must keep an unqualified right to trial before a District Court.
7. Replace the daily surcharge with a summons. A motorist who neither pays nor contests should be prosecuted in the ordinary way, with the burden of proof on the prosecution.
8. Adopt a driver-nomination procedure. The registered owner should be able to name the driver, and the notice should then follow the driver.
9. Publish the evidence standard. Camera calibration records, validation procedures and the evidence a motorist can inspect should be public and testable in court.
10. Issue a data protection framework. Retention periods, access rights and accountability for errors should be set out in regulations or published guidelines under Act 843.
Conclusion
Road safety and constitutionalism are not rivals. Ghana can use technology to save lives on its roads without allowing the Executive to determine guilt, impose punishment and penalisesilence. The Constitution does not forbid efficiency. It forbids efficiency purchased at the cost of the citizen’s right to be heard by a court.
Until Act 1153 and Regulation 242 are shown to guarantee that right, TRAFFITECH-GH remains vulnerable to challenge under Articles 2 and 130 before the Supreme Court. Parliament and the Ministry of Transport would do well to fix the design before the courts are asked to.
Eric Ofori Kwaah, Esq., IP, MCIM, ACIArb, MIoD, is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana. The views expressed are his own.
