Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, Prof Henry Kwasi Prempeh, has warned that reforming Ghana’s justice system without solid data could do more harm than good.
Speaking to Joy News, he stressed that evidence rather than assumptions must drive key decisions about court structures and jurisdiction.
Prof Prempeh said discussions around limiting the movement of cases to the Supreme Court must be backed by clear statistics, particularly on how often decisions from the Court of Appeal are overturned.
“You made a very important point about cases getting overturned, and in fact, this is where statistics is important. I would actually hope that we would get to a point where we have data to show the rate of overturned between the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court,” he said.
According to him, that data is essential before any decisive reforms are implemented.
“That’s an important statistic we must have before we make a full move on that one,” he noted, explaining that the implications of the numbers would determine whether an additional appellate layer is necessary or simply delaying justice.
“Because if the statistics show that that case is 90% of the cases are overturned, then we are in trouble. On the other hand, if they show that 90% are affirmed, then that layer is just delaying,” Prof Prempeh said.
He said such choices cannot be rushed and must be grounded in verified court records.
“So in fact, absolutely, I hope that the courts have the records and that at the appropriate stage in the process we can look at those records and say, look, the rate of overturn is so high that that layer is still necessary,” he said, adding that “it’s not one of those decisions I think that we should make easily.”
Prof Prempeh explained that the reform proposals were driven by concerns over growing delays in the justice system, with cases remaining unresolved for years.
“The idea was that cases were backing up. Too many cases are ageing in the system. Justice deleted. Justice denied,” he said, describing the situation as unfair to litigants.
“It’s not fair to the litigants for cases to be there for 10 or 20 years,” he said, noting that the committee sought to identify what was slowing down the process.
“What is slowing down the process? And they said, well, jurisdiction is one of them. Everything goes up to the Supreme Court.”
He said that reality-informed proposals aimed at managing the volume of cases reaching the apex court.
“So it’s okay, then let’s, let’s put in some of these reforms to make sure that we can at least control the volume of the load that’s going there,” he said.
Prof Prempeh stressed that the committee’s conclusions were based on direct engagement with the judiciary rather than theory.
“So these are things that we came to these decisions from real engagement with the judge,” he said, revealing that consultations were held across the courts.
“We met the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, the district court, the circuit court, and we had a dialogue with them around these issues,” he added.
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