An appeal court to be established in Kumasi - CJ

An Appeal Court of Justice would soon to be established in Kumasi to handle all appeal cases in the Northern Sector of the country, whilst the six high courts already existing in the region would be absorbed into the fast track court system to expedite the trial of cases.

Mr Justice E. K. Wiredu, Chief Justice announced this in Kumasi on Monday when commissioning a 212 million-cedi new court building, which houses two high courts.

He said the commissioning of the new High Court building would have a great positive impact on the administration of justice in the region since the main business of the Judiciary arm of the government was to ensure that justice flowed like a river overcoming the problems of delays to engender investor confidence in the country.

The attainment of this, however, he said depended on modernising the courtroom to keep pace with technological advancement. The Chief Justice said, even though, the courts constituted one of the oldest institutions in the country, they had been sadly neglected over the years in that furniture and other inputs and court houses were in a dreadful state of dilapidation making the need to modernise them a matter of urgency.

Mr Justice Wiredu promised to rectify the situation, which he termed as decay in which the courts had to subsist on inadequate monthly subvention from the government.

He said the judiciary should cease being treated as a ministry in all its financial allocation and instead be treated as the third arm of the government. "Any curtailment, direction, control of holding back on the budget of the third arm of government constitutes interference with its independence and is a violation of the Constitution which recognises the judiciary as the third estate of the realm."

Earlier in a welcoming address, Justice Gilbert Mensah Quaye, Supervising High Court Judge in the Ashanti Region, said the need for more high courts in the region had been long overdue with the rapid growth of the metropolis and the resultant increase in crime and civil cases before the courts.

The number of High Courts in the region had to be increased to four following the outcry by the bar and the general public to increase the number of high courts.

Justice Quaye said with the commissioning of two more high courts to bring the number to six and with three circuit courts, four community tribunals, two circuit tribunals and two regional tribunals, cases would be tried expeditiously in the region.

He, however, called for the clustering of all the courts to save lawyers and judges from shuttling in between places. He asked for accommodation for judges who had been transferred to the region to preside over the new High Courts.

The Supervising High Court Judge appealed to the Chief Justice to provide the courts with modern library since the justice system could not function well without a good library.

Mr S. K. Boafo, Regional Minister for Ashanti, promised that the Kumasi Metropolitan Authority (KMA) would tar all the access roads and pavements in the courts premises.