About 71,781 High Court cases have been filed through the electronic-justice (e-justice) system as of July 2024, the Judicial Service of Ghana has said.
And out of the total number of 468 courts in the country, 116 of them have been automated with a direct transcription system, bringing the total number of automated courts across the country to 228.
Also, efforts are being made to expand the initiative, which was launched in 2019 , to other high courts in the country.
This came to light when the Chief Justice, Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, members of the Judicial Service press corps in Accra on Friday to update the public on efforts to improve justice delivery in Ghana.
Various heads of departments and units took turns to share the progress made and projections of other initiatives being undertaken by the service.
The Chief Justice commended heads of departments of the JSG for their various roles in making justice delivery seamless for the public.
She said the importance of a strong judicial system highlighted the need for a more approachable and less traumatic court experience.
“My prayer is that very soon, the people of Ghana will not feel traumatized when they are coming to court.
“Coming to court should not be a negative, but simple experience, because the Judicial Service is there to serve the public,” the Chief Justice added.
ICT
The Director of ICT of the service, Noble Kekeli Nutifafa, said his department was also in the process of introducing other platforms that would allow judges to sign court orders electronically, a system which could be monitored by all parties in real time, including the use of machine learning algorithms to transcribe speech-to-text during proceedings and land database to allow the public to know the status of land cases before buying them.
To ensure efficiency, he said a mart office application would also be deployed to tackle administrative memo correspondents and e-signature, among others.
The Deputy Director, Archives, of the Judicial Service, Moses Owereko, said the digitalisation of both administrative and court documents had commenced at the Adabraka District Court (formerly Kaneshie District Court), the TDC District Court, the Accra High Court, the Cape Coast High Court and the Judicial Service Head Office.
Gender
The Director, Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the service, Papa K. Maise, said the number of female judges and magistrates had increased from 194 in 2021/2022 to 218 in the 2022/2023 legal year.
“This signifies approximately an equal percentage in terms of gender when it comes to Judges and Magistrates within the Judiciary,” he said.
The director added that a new guideline had also been launched to generate suit numbers to make judgments available to the public, adding that his outfit had begun publishing them on two platforms – www.africanlil.org and www.ghalii.org.
An officer at the Judicial Training Institute (JTI), Perpetual Quarshie, said since its establishment in 1995, the institute had developed and delivered training programmes for members of the Judicial Service and other stakeholders in the justice administration system.
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