Don't Entice Judicial Staff With Gifts – CJ
CHIEF JUSTICE Georgina Wood has appealed to the public to desist from enticing staff of the judiciary, including judges, with gifts in the course of seeking justice.
“Judicial corruption is the worst form of moral degradation, and everything must be done to uproot it”, she said, urging the public to resist “with all their might” those in the judiciary who make financial demands of them.
The Chief Justice was speaking at the eighth Chief Justice's Forum on the theme: 'Access to justice: a collective responsibility towards a transparent and accountable judiciary', in Elmina.
She described a recent validation report of the National African Peer Review Mechanism (NAPRM) in the Central Region that said the Judicial and the Police services were among the most corrupt institutions in the region as “most unfortunate”.
Justice Wood said the fight against corruption should not be just a slogan, but a national crusade where all stakeholders would collectively participate in stemming it for the Judicial Service to achieve its dream of being among the best in the sub-region.
Referring to land and chieftaincy disputes in particular, the Chief Justice appealed to traditional rulers and opinion leaders to also help curb corruption by desisting from influencing judges to adjudicate cases in their favour.
She said lawyers should also stop influencing judges, desist from delaying cases unduly and be quick to resort to Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) for redress.
Mrs. Wood said her administration had undertaken some interventions to fight corruption in the service and that a “Public Complaints Unit” has been set up for people to report “any incident of untoward behavior” on the part of workers of the service. She appealed to the public to take advantage of it.
Justice Wood said publications on the code of conduct of the service had been made available to judges, magistrates and all other staff to guide their actions, while all magistrate and district court fines had been directed to be paid to rural banks in their areas of operations.
She said justice must be accessible to all, therefore the service must be transparent and accountable to win public trust, adding that lack of accountability breeds culture of insecurity.
Touching on promotions in the service, the Chief Justice said they would be carried out on merit rather than long service, urging the staff to avail themselves for in-service training and other courses to upgrade themselves. On staff welfare, she said offices and residential accommodation would be built in the regions, while the upwards adjustment of their remunerations were also being considered.