The implementing partners of the USAID Ghana Justice Sector Support (JSS) activity have held discussions with the management of the Ghana News Agency for collaboration towards making justice more accessible to the vulnerable.
The partners – the Legal Resource Centre, Ghana Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the Crime Check Foundation – want the GNA to use its reach and varied platforms to promote legal education, especially for persons facing prosecution to understand their rights and the means to access justice.
This will be done, among others, through creating greater public awareness on the three-year JSS Activity (2020-2023), being implemented in 40 targeted Metropolitan, Municipal and Districts in seven regions.
The Activity aims at ensuring that Ghanaians, especially those in marginalised communities, become aware of their rights and how to access justice.
It focuses on helping them to monitor and sustain the implementation of Ghana’s Case Tracking System (CTS), a software, which tracks criminal cases from inception until they are disposed of.
It also focuses on monitoring and advocating for the utilisation of the CTS by targeted key justice sector institutions.
This will be done through increasing citizen knowledge and access to justice sector services and for strengthening advocacy interventions for accountability of the institutions in the sector towards improved justice delivery.
Mr Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, Executive Director, Crime Check Foundation, said the strategy was to create and strengthen a legal desk at GNA and build the capacity of reporters to keep track of criminal cases and sensitise the public on their rights to justice.
Mr Samuel Fant Kombian, Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning Specialist at the Legal Resources Centre, said the level of awareness on access to justice was very low, hence the Activity.
‘Media Justice Ambassadors’ , he said, would also be identified and empowered to drive the campaign.
Mr Albert Kofi Owusu, the General Manager, Ghana News Agency, welcomed the initiative and said the Agency was prepared to collaborate with the partners to enhance access to justice
He said GNA was better placed for the campaign because court reporting was one of its niche areas, with dedicated reporters and stringers spread across the country.
Mr Owusu said the Agency was expanding its services to include include digital platforms and audio-visuals content to tell the story of Ghana and Africa better to all segments of society.
He said the transformational agenda was focused on creating specialised content for segments such as Economic/ Business, Tourism, Energy, Agriculture, Law and Order, among others, and called for support from corporates to encourage specialisation by reporters, which engendered better understanding of issues and their reportage.
