Member of Parliament for South Dayi Constituency, Rockson Dafeamekpor has called for a reduction in the workload of judges.
According to him, although judges are competent and capable of executing their duties, overburdening them with cases affects the justice delivery system.
This, he said, is contrary to the perception that judges are inefficient.
Speaking on Newsfile on JoyNews, the NDC MP said, “I haven’t heard that our judges are inefficient, it is rather the workload. Having so much workload does not mean inefficiency, it is different.”
“You can be efficient and deliver on your mandate with speed. But when the person assigning cases is not taking into consideration the number of cases before you and keeps piling them, that cannot mean you’re inefficient,” he said.
Mr Dafeamekpor called for more use of the automated system where judges would be assigned cases automatically.
This comes after Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo held a press conference where she highlighted measures her administration is taking to improve the justice system.
Among other things, she called on the government to allocate more resources to improve their services.
According to her, the current administrative work of the judiciary is a manual system which delays its operations. However, the entire system can be digitalised with proper investments.
Meanwhile, Mr Dafeamekpor insists that although her ideas are good, ensuring judges are not overburdened will play a huge role in improving the judiciary.
Also, lawyer Kofi Bentil who was on the show agreed with the assertion, adding that other measures can be implemented to help judges.
He called for more transparency to help grow the trust of the populace in the justice delivery system.
Mr Bentil said that “the problem comes from the lower courts and they arise out of a lack of transparency on how the lower courts operate, and the fact that the workload is such that sometimes the judges skimp over so many things.”
“We should put more resources at the lower court, in terms of more justices. When we create that heavy sturdy capacity at the lower court, I believe these things will go down, especially if there is more transparency in terms of the justice administration,” Mr Bentil added.
Source: myjoyonline.com
