Wev are toying with Ghana's judiciary

Story: Stephen Sah
Ghana is one country where everything is taken for granted until a tragedy or something serious happens then we hurriedly take ad hoc measures to resolve the problem. However, like the proverbial scavenging bird, which promises to rebuild its nest after every heavy rainfall, we forget everything altogether until we are reawakened or struck by another tragedy.
For this kind of tendency Ghanaians are experts such that the alacrity with which we set up committees et al to handle situations and come up with plausible solutions the moment something happens is unmatched by any other country, to the best of my knowledge.
Just a few weeks ago, a major disaster was averted in Accra when a section of the Cocoa Affairs Courts near the National Lotteries collapsed, injuring two persons; one seriously.
Only God knows what would have happened if the incident had occurred during court session; everything would have been in disarray since our nurses and paramedics were on strike.
Immediately after the incident, the judiciary, led by the Chief Justice and some experts, visited the scene to assess the state of the buildings and the extent of damage. The incident has led to the disuse of some of the courts which have been relocated elsewhere in the city. This exercise has its own problem which is further exacerbated by the fact that some of the courts have to sit in the afternoon.
Many were those who blamed the near tragedy on the lack of maintenance culture of Ghanaians. There is no denying the fact that our attitude is not right yet the experts presented their report to the judicial authorities, as usual.
This article will not attempt a look at intricacies involved in this whole saga of court relocation since that has its problems which will be briefly addressed later. Its thrust is the dilapidated nature of the court infrastructure.
My investigations after the Cocoa Affairs incident revealed that apart from the main Supreme Court building and the cluster of court buildings there, the judiciary has no interest in the majority of the buildings it occupies and that since time immemorial the Service has been occupying these premises as a licensed tenant.
The service often takes charge of buildings provided by local authority administrations or palaces and other areas designated as such. It is obvious that these buildings are allowed to deteriorate because the service does not have the resources to undertake any maintenance or repairs.
A countless number of these buildings are being occupied on licence. These include the Cocoa Affairs Courts building which was originally not owned by the service. As the name suggests, it might have been put up for the administrators of the cocoa industry. So is the Greater Accra Regional Tribunal, which I am told, is owned by the Ghana Armed Forces; the Navy to be precise. These are areas where the courts are centred and one can locate the circuit and high courts here.
For the lower, community or magistrate courts, they are either located in a chief’s palace or a place which is not owned by the Judicial Service. Visits to the Osu, La, Accra Community Centre, Madina and Kaneshie magistrates’ courts reveals their awful states, if you asked me for a description of these court buildings. The odour which emanates from some of them coupled with the excessive heat is enough for one to fall sick.
Recently when I decided to go to the Kaneshie Magistrates’ Court, which is located within the Ga Mantse’s Palace I was told that the court had been relocated in the Regional Tribunal premises. I was told that the Ga chiefs needed the place for the funeral of their late king.
Probably they had planned the ejection long ago because of the lack of maintenance of the building and what an opportune time to eject them than during preparations towards the funeral of the paramount chief of the Gas?
If even under the very prying eyes of the authorities things have been allowed to go so bad then what is the situation in the rest of the country? A judicial staff official, when confronted with this issue was evasive but could only explain that it was the duty of every district or metropolitan assembly to see to the provision of community courts. “What about the other courts?” I asked.
Places that I have visited, such as my hometown, Sefwi Wiawso, Agona Swedru, Ewutu and others, in pursuit of my duty as a court reporter, have confirmed that the judiciary is not a landlord, at least in the majority of towns and cities across the country.
This was confirmed a couple of years ago when I attended the Chief Justice’s Forum where a very gloomy picture was painted of our court buildings during a picture slides show of some of our courts: some were located in noisy areas and even lacked basic facilities such as lavatory, chairs and lighting systems.
Accommodation for staff is an abomination and in one instance the house of a judge was leaking. What a sight we saw! The judge’s clothing hanging loosely somewhere near the bed. Anyway that livened up the seminar room because that provided a spontaneous infectious and uncontrollable laughter in the room.
Some lawyers I spoke to about the relocation of some courts and the shift system were not happy about the fact that some courts had to sit in the afternoon. To them that would deprive them of being in their chambers and attending to other issues or preparing for the next day's court.
Dr Kwaku Nsiah, a lawyer, said the centralisation of courts was not the best of options because every community was to have a magistrate, circuit and high courts. He said the current situation where all the courts were located at one place and everybody had to travel to the city centre to attend court sessions was not good because criminals could run away while being sent to the court. Furthermore, he said, the safety of dockets could not be guaranteed since they could easily get missing.
Another lawyer who declined to give his name, however, shared a different opinion and said the centralisation of the courts was advantageous except that the court buildings were not in good shape.
"Scattering the courts will be disastrous for both lawyers and clients. A client who does not have a lawyer can get one on entering the court complex. And for us lawyers our workload will be great in the sense that if I have different cases at different courts located elsewhere then it becomes difficult moving about", he said.
For Nii Akwei Thompson, also a lawyer, relocating the courts was problematic and action should be expedited so that afternoon sittings did not become the norm.
"The shift system should not be permanent but a temporary measure because we need the afternoon to attend to other matters", he said.
Mr Joseph Turkson, a lawyer, said the Judicial Service was experimenting with the decentralisation system whereby the courts are scattered but that system is plagued with problems. He said the current system should be maintained and beefed up with more judicial staff.
Maybe, the collapse of the Cocoa Affairs Courts building should be a clarion call for attention to be focused on the judiciary as the main dispenser of law and order in the society.
The infrastructure of the court aside, a serious diagnosis of its problems is urgent if we are serious about stopping the high turnover of its staff to attract the right calibre of staff, especially to the bench and nip in the bud the perceived corruption of the service for the public to have confidence in the administration of justice.
It has been said that a sound mind works in a healthy body so invariably if the judicial staff work under very deplorable conditions their overall output will be affected.
Justice delayed, they say, is justice denied. We should stop toying with the judiciary and be serious about doing something for the service if we want to make any headway in the current democratic dispensation.
I wonder if foreigners who visit the judiciary to learn from its exploits were taken round the various courts. It is obvious that they would have commended us in the face but send a bad image about us when they go back home.
We need to act to save the judiciary from its current mess and if for anything we cannot pay the staff well let us ensure that they work in very safe conditions. Without law and order our society cannot thrive for people to go about their everyday activities and there will be disorder.