CJ Calls For Radical Overhaul Of Justice System

Mrs Justice Georgina Wood - Chief Justice

Ghana's Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has called for the realignment of the country’s laws in a manner that will reflect its development aspirations.

To do that, she said, “the design of our penitentiaries and other custodial facilities will have to realistically reflect the reformative and capacity-building needs of prisoners”.

Justice Wood, who made the call at the 38th Law Week celebration of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, said issues such as post-custodial rehabilitation needed to be addressed.

This year’s Law Week is being held on the theme, “How should our past reflect our future: Thoughts on our legal system, natural resource use and development”.

Justice Wood said there was an urgent need to move away from the insular approach inherited from the British and begin to appreciate criminal justice as an integral component of the justice sector whose goal, as the Third Estate of the Realm, was to perfect the development aspirations of Ghana.

“I will seize the opportunity of this platform to suggest a radical overhaul of the systems and processes for criminal justice administration in Ghana. From issues of jury composition and selection, restorative justice to sentencing reform or review, we need to take a second look at our criminal law and criminal justice administration in general,” she said.

She said an instrumental look at the law and systems in that regard would afford the country the opportunity to fine-tune and specifically direct reform initiatives in a more tailored manner, vis-à-vis Ghana’s development needs.

Justice Wood said the time had come for the country to begin harnessing the gains of the rule of law in national development, adding that while the law had the potential to aid development, it could also stagnate and undermine development when poorly conceived, crafted and executed.

The Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Prof. E.K. Quashigah, said his vision was to see the Law Faculty being relevant and closely linked to society.

The President of the Law Students Union, Mr Kwaku Boadu, said the students chose to “focus on the national issue of law and development, rather than our internal needs”.

“Needless to say, we will soon leave the corridors of learning and join the real world. National issues are, therefore, our issues,” he said.