The Legal Resources Centre has organised a stakeholders forum in the Bolga East District of the Upper East Region, to create awareness on each institution’s mandate to help the citizens access support services on rights violation.
The program which was organised by the legal resources Centre with support from the USAID and in collaboration with the NCCE, is to afford the key stakeholders with the responsibility to help the citizens to access justice, to create awareness on how they collectively help the citizens to access justice support services.
Speaking on the sidelines of the program, Rule of Law Specialist of the LRC, Mr. Jengre Enoch, said the forum is aimed at collaborating with the institutions such as National Commission for Civic Education, CHRAJ, and Legal Aid Commission which are cash trap, to explain how they collectively help the citizens to access justice and afford the citizens the opportunity to ask the relevant questions for answers.
” Among our public education programs that we have held over the years, one challenge that citizens have complained about is that they really do not know much about the government institutions and the role that they play in terms of access to justice when their rights have been abused”.
We have met with the stakeholders in the Bolga East District so that they are able to get the platform to create the necessary awareness on how they would collectively help citizens access justice”
The Rule of Law Specialist of the LRC, Mr. Enoch said many citizens are far from accessing the service of institutions like the Legal Aid Commission and CHRAJ because some of them are not aware that such service exist.
“One challenge we have realised is that citizens are quite far from accessing this services. Some of them don’t even know that this services exist.”
” Case studying the NCCE, it has a mandate to carry out civic education awareness but ask them how much they receive. They are not able to go to the people to create this awareness , so it appears a field day for this abusers.”
Mr. Enoch also bemoaned the understaffing of the Legal Aid Commission in the region and the pressure on the only two lawyers serving the whole region.
Mr. Abdulai Jalaldeen, the Upper East Regional director of CHRAJ called on the public to knock at their offices whenever their rights are abused or they suspect any wrong doing by a public officer. He said CHRAJ offer free legal service to victims of abuse to help them get justice.
Mr Jalaldeen was however not happy that the public is not reporting cases to his office for investigation and called on the public to do so.
He promised whistle-blowers that their identity would not be made public.
The NCCE, CHRAJ and the Ghana Police Service also took the opportunity to enlighten the public on their responsibilities and called for public support to fulfil their mandate.
Mr. Enoch also touched on the electronic Integrated Criminal Justice Case-Tracking System which is to support key stakeholders in the justice delivery system to collect, collate, and harmonise statistical data for effective justice delivery.
“The Case Tracking System is an electronic system that enables stakeholders to monitor the progress of a particular case till it is finally resolved.”
He said the CTS is currently been implemented in seven districts of the Upper East Region and in eight regions of Ghana.
