The Chief Justice's vision for the Justice delivery system in Ghana was today, 8th day of April, 2024 outdoored to the public in a beautifully organized event that drew all stakeholders of the Justice delivery industry into the belly of the Accra International Conference Center.

The Chairperson for the event, the Chairman of the Council of State, Nana Otuo Siriboe the II gave a teaser of the full meaning of the LEADing initiatives when he graciously accepted to Chair the event. After a short documentary on Justice delivery in Ghana, the Chief Justice had the stage to herself to walk the gathering through her vision for this sector of the Ghanaian society.

What LEADing means?

L - Law

E - Ethics

A - Access

D - Digitalisation

Law

Per the learned Chief Justice, her vision for the sector is to improve the capacity of all workers within the system of Justice delivery to ensure adequate legal knowledge to enhance efficiency and reduce faulty processes filed in court among others. Under the branch of law in her LEADing initiatives, she calls for increased funding to the Judiciary to equip Judges with more tools such as libraries to increase the quality and speed of decision making.

More audaciously but highly commendable on her part, the Chief Justice seeks to train the over 7000 staff of the Judicial Service and all persons involved in justice delivery such as the police investigators, mediators, valuers, surveyors, auctioneers etc in paralegal studies.

She disclosed that there is a produced curriculum and materials in paralegal studies for accountants, registrars, secretaries, clerks and others in the Justice delivery system. She mentioned that the training of all these persons scattered across the length and breadth of Ghana will be done electronically with training exercises conducted before certification.

Ethics

Under this branch of the initiatives, Torkornoo J.S.C rehashed local and international documents on ethics for the Judiciary and moved on to identify the problems associated with the juror system as we have it. Per the Chief Justice, attempts will be made to engage the private sector staff in juror services. She took the opportunity with the audience of the Center under her command and a wider audience through the publication of her vision through the media, to request the cooperation of the private sector on the move to rope in the private sector persons for juror services. Still under this leg, Her Ladyship announced a raft of Practice Directions and Administrative Guidelines developed to ensure competence, efficiency and promote ethical behaviour by Judicial service staff and judges. The infograph below lists the Practice Directions and Directives. Copies of the Directives can be accessed by clicking here.

Under this leg of the Initiatives, the Lady Chief Justice indicated the soon to be organized land conference in the wake of increased litigation in Land. The Chief Justice rehashed tersely her sagacious exposition on the equity land holds in her decision on behalf of her brothers and sisters in the case of SIMON HOPPER (SUING ON BEHALF OF THE ROYAL NSONA FAMILY OF NKANFOA) v KWESI KWETIA [TLP-SC-2024-20].

She eloquently enumerated the problems and threats to land issues and litigation may pose for Ghana's security.

Access and Digitalization

Under this strand of the LEADing Initiatives, the Chief mentioned the urgent need to build an archive center for ready access to court records. She showed through a mounted screen the torrid nature of storage of court documents and the new ways of storage being implemented by the Supreme Court.

To applause from the gathered crowd made up of notable persons such as the Inspector General of Police, Clergy men including the Revered Aps. Nyamekye of the Church of Pentecost, Justices and Judges of all the levels of Court, some Chiefs, leadership of the Bar Association, Lawyers amongst others, the Chief Justice signaled the move by her office to digitalize court registries.

With a display of a Centrally managed transcription room in Kenya on a screen for the listening and viewing guests, Her Ladyship disclosed the push by her to undertake the setting up of such a system to speed up procurement time of court transcriptions.

https://www.tiktok.com/@thelawplatform/video/7340675476576374022?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7239416459838375429

Support

The Bar President on behalf of members of the association registered the support of the association to the Chief Justice in rolling out her bold vision for Justice delivery in Ghana. The Learned Attorney General signaled his unalloyed support to the Chief Justice in her vision. The government through the words of the Vice President also indicated its willingness to do more than it has achieved over the tenure of the President in improving Justice delivery in Ghana through the implementation of the initiatives eloquently outlined by the learned Chief Justice.