The season is upon us — that point of the yr when battle-weary legal professionals eking out a residing from practising on the superior courts get a deserved break — I imply the annual authorized trip. Accordingly, yours actually is ensconced in a leafy suburb, the placement of which shall not be disclosed for safety causes!
While we relaxation our battered legs and limbs, it’s opportune to replicate on some features of the authorized regime which, in my humble opinion, want some reforms.
It’s this that focuses the thoughts on a subject that has turn into very vexed in current weeks — the right variety of Justices for the Supreme Court docket.
In a letter addressed to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, justified the explanation why the variety of Justices adjudicating circumstances on the apex court docket must be elevated from the present 15 to twenty.
By and enormous, the motivation for that request was to assist the Supreme Court docket cope with the rising workload that the court docket is labouring below.
The rise, her Ladyship contended, would guarantee more practical and speedier hearings, larger high quality decision-making in addition to lowering the strain on the Justices of the Court docket.
Workload
It’s a truth, far past argument, that the workload of the Justices of the Supreme Court docket may be very punishing. Consequently, this unlucky state of affairs has occasioned delays within the administration of justice.
It takes an inordinate size of time after submitting a matter on the court docket to get a listening to.
We’re all conscious of the usually repeated however very true phrase, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. While there are a variety of explanation why justice shouldn’t be delayed, this piece won’t go into them for apparent causes — constraints of time and area.
Additionally, our focus on this write-up is just not centred on the deserves or demerits of the proposition by her the Chief Justice — it has garnered sufficient brouhaha with some calling for brimstone and fireplace to
rain on us — now we have had sufficient of that.
The aim of this text is to proffer some options that go to the guts of the issue — unreasonably excessive workload of the Justices of the apex court docket.
One of many options that has been bandied about is the discount of the extent of the jurisdiction of the court docket.
Overhaul
What I advocate is an overhaul of the entire attraction course of. There are too many appeals which can be overwhelming the Supreme Court docket due to the constitutional provision of appeals as of proper.
What this implies is that each aggrieved litigant has a constitutional proper of attraction.
The online impact of this seemingly ‘democratic’ proper is that it engenders and generates a variety of unmeritorious appeals clogging up the system.
In each case that litigants lose, irrespective of how preposterous and unworthy their case, they’re given the precise to attraction, thereby including to the pile of circumstances on attraction.
I suggest that we critically take a look at this and undertake what obtains in different jurisdictions, with explicit reference to England.
We should always undertake a two-pronged strategy to coping with appeals: limiting the precise of attraction solely to circumstances which have meritorious grounds of attraction and the insistence of strict cut-off dates for attraction.
In England, litigants want go away from the court docket to attraction superior court docket choices.
For instance, if you wish to attraction in a felony case, say from the Crown Court docket to the Court docket of Enchantment, you’ll have to search go away of the Court docket of Enchantment beforehand.
You’ll first have to seem earlier than a single choose of the Court docket of Enchantment to advance argument(s) as to why try to be allowed to attraction.
In the event you fail, you could have an opportunity to repeat the applying earlier than three (3) Justices of Enchantment. If the applying fails once more, you could have to pay prices and, in some circumstances, could also be given a lack of time order – spending longer time in custody and time added to the sentence.
The system purges all unmeritorious appeals and considerably cuts out all baseless appeals which could in any other case have clogged up the system. It’s about time to evaluate the ‘attraction as of proper phenomenon’.
As well as, if strict instances limits had been imposed inside which litigants had go away to attraction then it’s seemingly that solely probably the most worthy circumstances with credible grounds could be filed.
The author is a lawyer.
E-mail: georgebshaw1@gmail.com