The concern of most Ghanaians has been how long cases at Ghana’s judicial court takes before judgment.
Some cases are still in court for over a decade now, this situation is sometimes from the lawyers’ attitude to drag the case or prosecutors finding it difficult to provide the relevant evidence to see the fast trial of the cases before the court of competent jurisdiction.
The case of the death of the Upper East Regional chairman of the NPP, Adams Mahama is still in court after the incident in 2015, the same as the murder of the MP for Abuakwa-North J. B Danquah – Adu among other cases in court.
Judiciary of Ghana headed by the Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has launched an E-Justice Project to address challenges associated with the court processes.
Speaking at the event on Wednesday, March 20, the Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo said the introduction of the paperless court system will end the issues with the manual process.
Some of the challenges associated with the manual system include duplication of suit numbers, handwritten documentation and manually created files, manual transfer of documents from one person to the other through the registries, high case processing times and case backlogs, manual payments and receipts for court processes, which may result in fraudulent activities, delays in court processes, manual financial reconciliation, inconsistent reporting at various levels and loss of documentation during processing.
The E-Justice Project is focused on making the court processes simply. President Akufo-Addo also believed that the new paperless system will bring efficiency in Justice delivery in the country.
But assessing the E-Justice Project will help deal with the never-ending of cases spending years in court?
With the new system, most cases can be filed on time and judges electronically assigned to these cases to speed up the process, records of judicial work will be well kept in the country for reference sake.
In view of this most Ghanaians will be expecting the court to expedite actions on cases but it may not necessarily be so because most delays in cases are not only from the processes but also from the prosecutor or the lawyers involved, and if they are ready to see the fast trial of most cases.
The E-Justice Project will deal with one aspect of the problem which is the court processes making it easy for lawyers file cases anywhere they find themselves but not the issues that come from the lawyers on the cases.
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