By Razak Baba
Legal Aid Week has been marked in the Obuasi Municipality of Ashanti with a reminder that access to legal aid for equal and fair justice delivery in the country is a civil right and not a privilege.
The Programme Manager at Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Mrs. Esther Poku Adu-hene who gave the reminder said financial constraints, ignorance, and lack of information deter people from accessing justice service delivery.
The Commonwealth Human Right Initiative, a non-governmental organization, is implementing the USAID-funded Ghana Case Tracking System aimed at helping to strengthen the nation’s justice delivery system.
The Case Tracking System enables key actors in the justice delivery system to electronically access and track the stages of criminal cases from the point of arrest through investigation, prosecution, conviction and rehabilitation to release.
It is being implemented jointly with the Legal Resource Center and the Crime Check Foundation.
The Government first launched the electronic case tracking system project in 2018 to support key justice sector institutions to collect and harmonize data for effective justice delivery.
They included the Ghana Police and Prisons Services, Attorney-General’s Department, Legal Aid Commission, Economic and Organized Crime Office and the Judicial Service.
At a durbar at Tutuka in the Obuasi Municipality of Ashanti to mark Legal Aid Week, Director of the Africa Office of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Madam Mina Mensah advised Ghanaian litigants to make use of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms.
The Programme Manager at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Mrs. Esther Poku Adu-hene called for the intensification of community education to enlighten Ghanaians on the existence of legal aid.
A Senior Alternative Dispute Resolution Officer at the Legal Aid Commission Office in the Ashanti Region, Frederick Kankam Boadu said, ”nothing should impede people from accessing legal aid services for justice delivery”.