The season is upon us — that point of the 12 months when battle weary legal professionals eking out a dwelling 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 mirror on some points of authorized regime which, in my humble opinion, want some reforms.
It’s this that focuses the thoughts on a subject that has change into very vexed in current weeks — the proper variety of Justices for the Supreme Courtroom.
In a letter addressed to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, justified the the reason 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 Courtroom cope with the growing workload that the court docket is labouring beneath.
The rise, her Ladyship contended, would guarantee more practical and speedier hearings, increased high quality decision-making in addition to lowering the stress on the Justices of the Courtroom.
Workload
It’s a reality, far past argument, that the workload of the Justices of the Supreme Courtroom 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 customarily repeated however very true phrase, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. While there are lots of the reason why justice shouldn’t be delayed, this piece is not going to go into them for apparent causes — constraints of time and area.
Additionally, our focus on this write-up just isn’t 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 — we’ve got had sufficient of that.
The aim of this text is to proffer some options that go to the center 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 are overwhelming the Supreme Courtroom 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 web impact of this seemingly ‘democratic’ proper is that it engenders and generates lots of unmeritorious appeals clogging up the system.
In each case that litigants lose, regardless 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 have a look at this and undertake what obtains in different jurisdictions, with specific reference to England.
We should always undertake a two-pronged method 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 depart from the court docket to attraction superior court docket selections.
For instance, if you wish to attraction in a legal case, say from the Crown Courtroom to the Courtroom of Enchantment, you’ll have to search depart of the Courtroom of Enchantment beforehand.
You’ll first have to seem earlier than a single decide of the Courtroom of Enchantment to advance argument(s) as to why you need to be allowed to attraction.
When you fail, you have got an opportunity to repeat the appliance earlier than three (3) Justices of Enchantment. If the appliance 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 assessment the ‘attraction as of proper phenomenon’.
As well as, if strict occasions limits had been imposed inside which litigants had depart to attraction then it’s possible that solely probably the most worthy circumstances with credible grounds could be filed.
The author is a lawyer.