UK delegation calls on judiciary

Accra, April 15, GNA - An eight-member delegation led by the British Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Ms. Harriet Harman on Wednesday met with officials of the Judiciary in Accra.

The delegation includes Dr Nicholas Westcott, British High Commissioner, Lise-Anne Boissiere, Private Secretary, Ayesha Hazarika, Special Adviser and Peter Ruskin of the British High Commission. The rest are Polly Toynbee, The Guardian Newspaper, UK, Marie Staunton, Chief Executive, Plan UK and Charlotte Montague, from Ms Harman's Constituency Office.

The visit would afford the delegation the opportunity to learn about issues concerning gender equality and violence against women and how the courts have handled those cases.

Ms Harman who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham said she was happy to meet members of the Ghanaian judiciary to learn at first hand issues about gender and domestic violence, especially against women, which had come before the courts. Ms Sophia Akuffo, a Supreme Court Judge who represented the Chief Justice (CJ) Mrs Georgina Wood said even though Ghana had achieved some success in the area of gender and domestic violence, the country had not completely met all the challenges yet.

She said gender rights concerning women were enshrined in the country's 1992 constitution on which the courts based their rulings. She said there was a lot of work to be done by the Police and prosecution to ensure that cases on gender and violence against women were speedily death with to enhance the justice delivery system. Justice Akuffo also cited for example that there were 64 female judges in the Judiciary, about 22 percent of the 290 judges in the country and said even though there was no deliberate policy to deny women the opportunity to join the judiciary many female law graduates preferred to go into private practice.