A-G?s Dept Cries For Lawyers

MR. Martin Amidu, Deputy Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, has said the acute lack of personnel and logistics is seriously undermining the ability of the Attorney-General's Department to perform its constitutional duties.

He said though the department in the short-term needs about 200 lawyers and about a 1,000 in the long-term to enable it to effectively discharge its duty of promoting the administration of justice, it currently has only 96 lawyers due to poor service conditions.

?There is, therefore, an urgent need to improve the conditions of service of the department to enable it to attract and retain lawyers and other personnel so that the administration of justice does not suffer unduly?, he said.

Mr. Amidu was delivering a paper on ?The role of the Attorney-General?s Department in the Dispensation of Justice? at a seminar on 'Court Reporting' which ended in Accra last Friday.

It was organised by the Ghana Journalists Association and funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Its objective was to equip the participants, who were drawn from all the media houses in the country, with the requisite skills to enable them to report meaningfully from the courts. Mr. Amidu said the department, apart from being the chief legal adviser to the government, also initiates and conducts civil and criminal cases on behalf of the state and settles claims against the government. Mr. Amidu said as a result of the acute shortage of personnel, the department has to depend on the Police Service to conduct investigations and prosecutions on its behalf.

"Legally speaking, it is not ideal that policemen be allowed to prosecute serious cases as confirmed by a recent judgement from the appeal court because justice can be compromised by their lack of in-depth knowledge of the law" he said. On the question of the allegiance of the Department, he said although the Attorney-General and his Deputy are appointed by government, the use of their prosecutorial powers are "based purely on professional considerations and not on partisan motives". Mr. Amidu announced that the Attorney-General?s Department is working closely with the World Bank to come out with a draft bill on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to help reduce litigation and decongest the courts.

"The department is a firm believer in the ADR system as borne out by the fact that it successfully settles out of court over 65 per cent of all claims against the government every year." Mr. Justice George Acquah of the Supreme Court suggested the introduction of a post-graduate certificate course at the Ghana Institute of Journalism to assist journalists to specialise in court reporting. Mr. Justice Charles Hayfron-Benjamin, who touched on "Delays in the Judiciary", announced plans to mechanise all the courts, adding that all judges in the High, Appeal and Supreme courts are being equipped with literacy skills in this direction.

In a resolution passed at the end of the two-day seminar, the participants called on the Ghana Journalists Association to include "The Best Court Reporter" category in its annual awards scheme. ? GNA.