District and Municipal Assemblies urged to support LAC to make their services accessible

Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) have been urged to support the Legal Aid Commission (LAC) for their presence to be well felt for the marginalised and the poor in society to easily access their services.

Mr. Thomas Benarkuu, the Programmes Director of MIHOSO International Foundation, a non-governmental organisation gave the advice at a public forum on the Case Tracking System

Read full article(CTS) and Access to Justice Delivery held at Nsapor in the Berekum Municipality of the Bono Region.

He noted that the services of the LAC were needed mostly in rural communities where many people were denied access to justice because they could not afford to pay for legal services due to poverty.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an NGO with support from MIHOSO, its local partners organised the forum to sensitize the participants comprising farmers, market women, traders, hairdressers and dressmakers, Assembly Members and carpenters.

Mr. Benarkuu indicated that the LAC ought to be adequately resourced so that the commission would be well decentralised at the District and Municipal Assembly levels for particularly, the rural poor to easily access their services to enhance the nation's justice delivery system.

The CTS is an integrated software that tracks criminal cases in the justice delivery system from its inception until their disposition.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the government launched the CTS in 2018 to provide information about criminal cases at every stage in the justice delivery system.

Mr. Benarkuu said the services of the LAC would remain relevant if it benefited the ordinary Ghanaian who could not afford the cost of legal services, saying it was therefore imperative for District and Municipal Assemblies to support the establishment of the commission at the local levels.

By so doing, he added the marginalised and the poor in society would also have the opportunity to access the services of the commission in seeking prompt and quality justice delivery.

Mr. Benarku commended the government for establishing the LAC but underlined the need for the government to adequately staff and resource the commission, saying the staff strength of the commission was not the best if the country wants to improve its justice delivery system.

Touching on the CTS, Superintendent Moses Nan-Kolgo Agbene, the Berekum Divisional Crime Officer regretted that despite its numerous benefits, the implementation of the system was confronted with myriad challenges including poor internet connectivity and lack of logistics.

He, therefore, called on the implementers of the CTS and other partners to address the pertinent challenges frustrating the system for the nation to get the desired benefits.

Supt Agbene emphasized that modern policing remained shared and collective responsibility, and therefore appealed to the general public to support the police with logistics and other resources.