Cases awaiting Attorney General’s advice alarming

The Judicial Service says there is an alarming number of cases 'awaiting Attorney General's advice'.Cases that await Attorney General (AG)'s advice include murder, rape, manslaughter and fatal accidents.Mr Papa K. Maisie, Director, Monitoring and Evaluation, Judicial Service, said this during Chief Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo's interaction with the Judicial Press Corps at the Law Court Complex in Accra.Mr Maisie said the Service discovered the alarming number of cases after the Quality Assurance Unit of the Service undertook analysis of criminal cases pending in District Courts.Mr Maisie gave a presentation on behalf of the Director of Quality Assurance and said the Service contacted the AG and a number such cases had been disposed off through the Justice for All Programme held in some prisons in the country.Additionally, he said the Ghana Police Service prosecutors had been prompted to finalise pending cases on time.Mr Maisie said the Quality Assurance Unit of the Judicial Service had a doc ument that captured timelines set by law for every process in the justice delivery chain.According to him, the Service had taken steps to rationalise jurisdictions of the various courts and same was also being documented.Additionally, it was mapping out areas and neighbourhoods expected to be served by courts in the districts and municipalities.'The purpose of the document is to enforce jurisdictional filing… The geographical jurisdiction is also aimed at informing both court staff and court users where to access justice depending on the person's location.'On maintenance and relocation of courts, Mr Maisie said the Quality Assurance Unit was building relationships with various Municipal Chief Executives to support the maintenance and relocation of old dilapidated court buildings and structures.'Through this engagement, courts within municipalities such as Korle Kolttey, Teshie and La have seen some improvement in the state of their facilities.'He said the Unit was also employing strategies to redu ce caseloads of busy courts nationwide.By the end of the 2023/2024 legal year, Ghana has one Supreme Court, six Courts of Appeal, 129 High Courts, 104 Circuit Courts and 228 Districts courts nationwide.Source: Ghana News Agency