Yaw Acheampong Boafo, president of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has said the judicial service in the country should adopt the use of electronic systems in court proceedings for effective and speedy justice delivery.
Speaking at the 2022 annual Chief Justice’s Forum on Thursday (17 November) in Kumasi, he said, the adoption of a virtual court proceeding system can be actualised if the judicial service invests in resources and laws to aid in its implementation.
“As we move into the future, the Ghana Bar Association encourages the judicial service and the judiciary for that matter to embrace and extend electronic filing and electronic management systems at all levels of the court to ensure efficiency in expedition,” he said.
The event was under the theme: “Improving access to justice in a pandemic through technology.”
According to Acheampong, COVID-19 has affected lifestyle, norms and practices whether social, official or corporate or private activities that “we have all become accustomed to so there is a need to consider alternative means of access to justice.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an interjection on the traditional ways of justice delivery.”
The pandemic has increased the awareness of the value, role and use of information- communication technology and digitization in our environmental actions including the work of the court so therefore it should be necessary to consider electronic systems.
According to him, “the time is now for a transition from the traditional face to face court proceedings to digital forms of delivering justice by the court, embracing all the new modern technologies that support the various court processes and proceedings.”
He then again proposed the setting up and maintaining of social media handles that will inform the public on key court judgements.
“To promote peace in the society, people who have had their rights violated can, to some reasonable extent, return to the court through an affordable manner without regards to any economic status when electronic systems for court proceedings are adopted.”
Jonathan Ofori and Gladys Mensah
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