The Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Nana Akufo- Addo has stated that once the Chief Justice and the new Judicial Council are in place he will consult them about proposals to be laid before Parliament for the amendment of the Courts Act to abolish the Community Tribunals System and restore the Magistrate Court, writes the Daily Guide.
Nana Addo said the Magistrate Court, prior to the conversion into Public Tribunals, was manned exclusively by lawyers. He said this in reply to a question put to him by Hon Kwakye Addo, MP for Afram Plains South about what problems the Minister had identified with the country's Tribunals and how his Ministry is addressing the problem so identified. According to Nana Addo the Community and Circuit Tribunals are statutorily created and are amenable to reform by the statutes. He said the Community Tribunals or the District Magistrate Courts are the first points of law for the majority of persons who become embroiled in the system.
The Attorney-General said that there are some people who maintain that the tribunal system is fundamentally progressive of the concept of popular participation and that they should be maintained. He said superficially attractive as this may be it fails to address two fundamental defects. The first one being the excessively expensive nature of the tribunal system and the other the poor quality of justice built into it.
