In 2019, President Nana Akufo-Addo lwas released a $97 million e-justice projecta paperless court system that would enhance Ghana’s efforts to improve the administration of justice.
Funded by The World Bankthe project sought to automate existing manual filing systems within court registries, from filing cases to executing court orders.
“The project seeks to help ensure that the law keeps pace with technology, ending the age-old phenomenon of “missing networks” and endless litigation, which have plagued the effective administration of justice in the country for several years now.“, said the President.
The plan was to develop the e-Justice project in Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, all High and District Courts in the regional capitals as well as the Tema metropolitan area by 2022.
Fast forward to 2023 and the platform appears to be facing setbacks due to delays and technical challenges that have slowed implementation in court systems.
Digging deeper
Even after its launch, there were several reports that the system was “useless” due to unreliable Internet service that prevented users from accessing the system for cases and filings.
As of this publication, the security certificate for its login page expired nearly three months ago, making the site “unsafe” for web users.
(Users can still access the site login if they choose to bypass the security warning, but we don’t recommend entering your login details)
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By The Numbers
Information on the use of the platform is scarce but according to a document by the Ghana Judicial Service in 2022, the number of cases in the system was 61,000+ from 2022. This is an increase from 58,495 compared to the previous year.
According to the same document, it appears that the system’s scope for pilot has been changed to 2022 and will be ready in 2026 despite “launch» in 2018.
what is happening now
As of our investigation, the system is still being implemented on the backend with “Phase Two” of the project being set in motion. According expressions of interest launched in 2022, the project was looking for a consultant to implement a change management system.
At present, it is difficult to determine whether the system is ready with some lawyers contacted stating that they do not use the eJustice platform due to technical challenges leading to recourse to the manual process. Some judges, due to the same technical challenge, have not adopted the use of the system.
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