Skip to main content

Posts

THE SPEED OF OUR COURTS. CAUSES OF DELAYS AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REDUCE THOSE DELAYS

    Just recently, it was reported in the media that prosecution has closed its case against the 14 accused persons in the case of Major Mahama who was brutally murdered by a mob on May 29th 2017. This has sparked interest in a long-standing topic on why cases delay so much in our courts. We are in 2022. It’s been 5 years since this matter started and I dare say the case has traveled only 50% of its potential life span in the court. (could be more or less) The wheels of justice they, say grind slowly, but it grinds even slower in Ghana. Justice delayed is also said to be justice denied. This write up is meant to highlight some of the things that causes delays in the writer’s opinion and to offer suggestions on what could be done to reduce these delays. The writer being a legal practitioner, some of these delays affects his work. He therefore believes, that it is in the interest of us all to understand some basics about these delay phenomena in order to help us all have confiden

MOTIVATION - MY ELEVEN YEARS JOURNEY TO THE BAR

    Somewhere in the first quarter of 2010, I received a call from Alexnder Osei Owusu (Lexis). I was then serving as a National Service person at the Akuapem Rural Bank in Mamfe – Akuapem. Lexis was my friend in council when we both served students in leadership positions at the University of Cape Coast.   I had discussed with him whilst we were yet to graduate, that I would like to study law after my first degree. He had seen a newspaper advert which was almost expiring so he called to prompt me. He said, Nii, tomorrow is the deadline for submission, have you submitted already and my answer was a no. I therefore had to quickly get permission from the office to go and buy the University of Ghana Admission forms and apply for the Post First Degree LLB. Everything was hand-written on physical forms and submitted physically at that time. I did not have my transcript at the time and it meant, I needed to travel to Cape Coast the next day, get the transcript and some recommendation let