About the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID is the lead U.S. government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential. For more than 50 years, USAID has supported Ghana in increasing food security, improving basic health care, enhancing access to quality basic education, and strengthening local governance to benefit all Ghanaian people.
About the USAID Justice Sector Support Activity (JSSA)
Ghana’s criminal system faces a number of challenges ranging from cases not being handled in a timely manner, long and tedious paper works, missing dockets, bureaucracies in cases moving from one justice sector institution to another, lack of communication and a lack of system to determine accountability from the various justice sector institutions. This has weakened the efficiency and effectiveness in handling criminal cases leading to unresolved cases, wrongful judgement of individuals, crowded prisons amongst other challenges.
The USAID Justice Sector Support Activity, is an activity which focuses on monitoring and sustaining the implementation of Ghana`s Case Tracking System (CTS), which is a software system instituted by Chemonics International and its partners, aimed at employing technology solutions to track criminal cases from inception until being disposed of. The Activity which is being implemented in forty (40) target Districts in seven (7) Regions of Ghana combines mutually complementary methodologies including; Rights-Based, People-Centered and enhanced Social Accountability Approaches based on lessons learnt in the justice space. It aims at ensuring that marginalized communities through mobilization and innovative public education programs are aware of and supported to track progress of the delivery of the CTS.
The Activity also focuses on monitoring and advocating for the utilization of the CTS by targeted key Justice Sector Institutions (JSIs) namely; (Ghana Police Service, Ghana Prisons Service, Attorney General`s Department, Legal Aid Commission, Economic and Organized Crime Office and Judicial Service), mobilizing Citizen Monitoring Groups (CMGs) to monitor the CTS process, facilitating demand for its functionality, accountability and responsiveness by relevant State Institutions, promoting legislative and policy reform, and advocating better coordination among the key JSIs and civil society. These will be achieved by; increasing citizen knowledge and access to Justice Sector services, strengthening advocacy interventions for accountability of key Justice Sector Institutions to improve justice delivery and increasing citizens’ oversight and monitoring of criminal cases. By so doing, these interventions collectively aim to speed up case processing and disposal of cases more timeously, effectively tracing cases and dockets within the justice space whilst ensuring the elimination of injustices in Ghana`s criminal justice system.
The table below gives a summary of the USAID JSSA goals, purpose, objectives and expected outcomes
Legal Resources Centre (LRC)
LRC, the prime, is recognized for facilitating community concerns to influencing national governance and justice-related institutions. It employs strategies such as advocacy for rights enforcement, legal and policy reforms, community mobilization and social accountability mechanisms. For instance, the LRC has strengthened the capacity of over 500 officials drawn from the security agencies, Judges/Magistrates, Court Clerks/Interpreters and personnel of the Department of Social Welfare.
These interventions have culminated into improvement in how these officials within the justice space are handling children who are in contact and conflict with the law. LRC has also facilitated citizens’ proposal to influence ongoing amendment of child-related laws, polices and regulations. Again, it has created a Network of ten (10) lawyers across the Country, recruited 150 paralegals nationwide and developed a web-based case reporting system, which is available to the public for reporting cases of child abuse to the LRC for legal assistance.
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)
The CHRI’s focus on the intersection between Human Rights and good governance practices, by promoting Access to Justice and Information will be brought to bear on the implementation of this project. CHRI is recognized for its technical expertise on rights-based approaches to justice delivery. It single-handedly spearheaded Civil Society’s push for a successful passage of Ghana’s Rights to Information (RTI) law in 2019.
Crime Check Foundation (CCF)
CCF with a huge following on various media platforms is noted for its interventions in deploying documentaries on national television and social media to highlight infractions of the law and the violations of the rights of prison inmates to engage the attention of the public and policy makers. The organisation has continuously played a leading role in pushing Parliament to pass the Narcotics Control Commission Bill into law through its documentary dubbed, ‘Drug Users and Peddlers in Ghana`s Prisons’.
Objective three (3) of the JSSA project; ‘Increasing Citizen Knowledge and Access to Justice Sector Services’, – requires huge media coverage to make this objective successful. With its huge following on both social media and traditional media, CCF believes it is bringing to the partnership an important strategic fit to strengthen the CTS through Citizen Engagement. In all, the LRC will leverage on its experiences, collaboration with the key Justice Sector Institutions and its exposure built over the years on similar assignments to successfully lead this Partnership to advocate for an enhanced responsiveness for improved justice delivery.
Table 1.0: Activity Targeted Regions and Metropolis, Municipalities and Districts
Project Launch
The Partnership launched the Activity at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra on 23rd October 2020. There was a total of one hundred and fifteen (115) attendants including dignitaries. To grace the occasion was His Lordship Justice Dennis Dominic Adjei, Justice of the Court of Appeal who also served as the Chairperson for the event. Other dignitaries at the event included His Lordship Justice Samuel Marfo-Sau Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr Emmanuel Mensah-Ackman (Director of the Office of Democracy, Rights and Governance – USAID) and representatives from the six (6) key JSIs. The Activity was launched to create stakeholder awareness of the CTS and to solicit their buy-in.
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