A private legal practitioner, Godfred Anim-Nyarko has indicated that Ghana’s justice delivery system has seen discipline regarding timelines in trying cases in courts following the introduction of the Case Tracking System (CTS).
He said the CTS has become a game-changer as it has kept justice sector institutions (JSIs) on their toes by helping to reform the justice delivery sector.
During a discussion on the AM Show on Joy News, Mr. Anim-Nyarko said the reforms have helped to uphold the rights of accused persons.
The discussion, which was on justice delivery in Ghana, forms part of a nationwide education on the implementation of the CTS under the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) funded Justice Sector Support Activity (JSSA).
Mr. Anim-Nyarko said the courts and other JSIs have been made to deal with cases that come to their doorstep with definite timelines. This he said has improved justice delivery as compared to previous years where accused persons spent years on remand because cases take too long to be tried due to missing dockets.
He said accused persons have the right to be tried in a reasonable time frame and the CTS has been introduced to strengthen such right.
“The main problem that it is meant to solve is to prevent accused persons from staying on remand for years without having their cases called. It is also to solve the missing dockets menace. Every individual involve in the justice delivery chain logs onto the CTS on when the person received a docket or when a docket left the person’s desk. In that way every movement of the case from one point to the other is tracked,” he explained.
He added, “relatives of accused persons can demand the status or proceedings of the case of their loved ones when they realize the trial is being delayed unduly. The age where accused persons rot on remand is now a thing of the past,” he said.
The legal practitioner urged the media to carry-out campaigns to educate the general public on the reforms the justice delivery sector has experienced to build confidence in the sector.
USAID Justice Sector Support Activity
The USAID Justice Sector Support Activity (JSSA) aims at increasing citizen knowledge and access to Justice Sector services, strengthening advocacy interventions for accountability of key Justice Sector Institutions to improve justice delivery, and increasing citizens’ oversight and monitoring of criminal cases to enhance justice delivery
