Make justice affordable under the Law – Legal Recources Center pleads
"Our advocacy is to improve justice system policies that makes a difference, so that people would have an understanding of their legal rights and ability to pursue their case,"
Make justice affordable under the Law – Legal Recources Center pleads
A day’s workshop has been held in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta region to strengthen key institutions responsible for justice delivery so as to improve the country’s justice delivery system. It was put together by the Legal Resources Center (LRC).
The national programmes Officer for the Legal Resources Center, Robert Tettey Nomo Jnr, explained that the workshop aims to expand access to Justice, by making more educational appeal and advocacy.
He said the center identified some difficulties and is making real the policies that will ensure access to justice for all.
“Access to justice is also part of critical efforts to root out racial inequities in the justice system because some people suffer disproportionately from the justice system’s maltreatment of disadvantaged litigants.
According to him, the goal is to make it easier for people to learn about their rights, assert their rights, obtain fair decisions, and enforce those decisions when it becomes crimes by law.
“Our advocacy is to improve justice system policies that makes a difference, so that people would have an understanding of their legal rights and ability to pursue their case, knowing the principles of justice in a criminal plea and sentence, or that concerns other kinds of life problems that intersect with the law.
“For instance, most people are not aware that unless you resist arrest unnecessarily, the police do not have the right to use any force in effecting your arrest,” he said.
Robert Tettey therefore tasked the participants to promote legal awareness, adding that, for the populations to access justice, they must understand their rights and the means for claiming them. He said most people in a war-torn state, see the laws and the formal justice system as alien institutions which they fear and do not understand how to go about it.
Meanwhile, awareness helps to counter this misunderstanding and promote access to justice.
He said more campaigns need to be conducted by the state, but they are most effective when conducted by civil society at the grassroots level or through the media.
“Because providing information to huge populations is a significant challenge, trusted and familiar social networks that is, the use of community-based formal and informal networks to enhance legal awareness and the messages should be in local languages taken into account literacy rates.”
The Ketu South Municipal Director of the NCCE, Evelyn Glokpodzi, elaborated on the mandate of the National Commission for Civic Education. She said the commission will continue to work to promote and sustain Ghana’s democracy and inculcate in the Ghanaian citizenry the awareness of their rights and obligations, hence the support for the LRC’s “ACCESS TO JUSTICE” awareness.
The Ketu South Municipal Investigative Director for CHRAJ, Victor Adane-Barifi, noted that, accessing justice in Ghana must first of all be cost free because justice is an essential ingredient of the rule of law.
“People need to be able to access the courts and legal processes if not, the law cannot enforce people’s rights and responsibilities.”
According Adane-Barifi access to justice involves the normative legal protection, legal awareness, legal aid and counsel, adjudication, enforcement, and civil society oversight. He added that CHRAJ will continue to supports a sustainable peace justice delivery by affording the population to a more attractive alternative to violence in resolving personal and political disputes.
By Hebrews Pouyeli Kumako ||Ghananewsonline.com.gh
