Processing of cases in Ghana’s courts can be extremely frustrating and stressful but in recent years, lawyers and their clients who patronise the court have a new story to tell.
Litigation lawyer Antoinette Boamah until recently had nothing exciting to say about court processes in Ghana amid delays in hearings of her clients’ cases. But she has now found some relief having used the country’s electronic justice system.
Previously, it took about a week for defendants in places like Kumasi to receive court documents after she filed a legal process.
Today, Lawyer Boamah is able to process and serve legal processes within a matter of minutes and these documents are received by practitioners in other regions in record time.
“When the system is working, it’s very smooth, it’s very fast, and everything is online. In fact, sometimes you want to file the process in Accra and serve it in Kumasi, we do that a lot, and when you file it, they scan it and do everything and the next minute, it’s in Kumasi and someone is serving it in Kumasi. So, I can file a process today and by the end of the day, you’ll be served in Kumasi,” Ms Boamah narrated to TV3’s Laud Adu-Asare.
Ghana’s E-justice system launched in 2019 cost $97 million. The system provides an electronic platform for filing of cases with clients’ identification documents mainly the Ghana Card issued by the National Identification Authority required.
Once the cases are filed online, workers of the court are able to access them for processing. The platform is able to generate the required fees for the cases and then make payments online leveraging the country’s digital payment infrastructure including mobile money, visa cards and bank payments.
The E-justice platform also allows court workers to allocate cases to Courts/Judges and manage the Judge’s calendar for execution of processes for all cases filed at the Registry of the Court.
The platform also allows for virtual court hearings with witnesses able to join proceedings without necessarily being in the courtroom.
Data provided by the Judicial Service indicates that, as of January 2025, approximately 75,829 cases had been filed through the system.
The process has provided a faster, relatively smoother way of processing and serving legal processes involving all parties while improving transparency in the justice system to reduce human interference to the barest minimum.
“The judges or courts do not even know the cases that are coming so they can’t lobby. The algorithm is such that they’re unable to tell unless it is allocated. Once it is filed and it goes through the motions then the algorithm will just do the distribution,” Director of ICT at the Judicial Service, Noble Nutifafa explained.
“We used to have a lot of duplication of suit numbers manually. But in the e-realm, all those processes have been streamlined. When there’s a duplication it can flag it down and note that, that suit number already exists. It also cuts down on middlemen,” he further noted.
For Legal practitioner Vitalis Suglo whose work has seen significant improvement as a result of the e-justice system, the video conferencing feature is his favourite.
“The aspect of the e-justice system that I have used is the video conferencing feature. The video conferencing enables witnesses who are outside Ghana to give their testimony in person in a case that is pending in Ghana here. There is the other side of the e-justice system that deals with the filing of court processes or court documents,” he said.
“It’s very convenient that you can, from your office, file your processes. And then also a witness will be able to give their testimony from wherever they are. They can still do that in person without coming to Ghana.
A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Janapare Bartels-Kodwo noted that the e-justice system has been of enormous help.
“I started as a magistrate about 30 years ago and wrote laboriously. In our lower courts, you need to deal with the interpretation part, so the question is going to go from the lawyer to the person, through the interpreter, back to the person through the lawyer and there’s a lot of back and forth. But with the electronic taking of evidence, it is faster,” he said.
“I’ll encourage the legal fraternity, lawyers, judges, paralegals, the citizenry, for the old lawyers, they shouldn’t shy away from it and at the end of the day, they won’t regret it. Learning doesn’t stop because you’re old so they should learn new things and use e-justice, it’ll make their work far, far easier,” Justice Janapare Bartels-Kodwo urged.
Although the electronic system has greatly improved Ghana’s justice system, very few legal practitioners know about the e-justice system or use it.
Lawyer Justice Tsakpoe, says education about the benefits of the system is rather very little.
“I have not used the filing of court processes with the e-Justice system. I believe that the major challenge with the e-justice system is that we don’t have much education on it. If there was much education and there was an intentional effort to make some aspects of it compulsory, then we take it from there. So, for example, I’m sure many lawyers like myself do not know that you can file processes through the e-justice system,” he said.
“And because lawyers are used to the filing of processes manually, I mean, for change, for a profession which is much conservative for a change to take place, you need to put in some efforts for it to be implemented,” Lawyer Tsakpoe added.
But Justice Bartels-Kodwo, though admitting that more education is needed, attributed the low usage of the system to the failure of some lawyers to adapt to changes.
“We all know that change is difficult, and many people are used to doing things the old-fashioned way. Maybe through the bar with collaboration with the judicial service, we can have more engagements sensitising them.
“E-Justice isn’t spread everywhere in the court system yet so maybe some lawyers outside the Greater Accra region may not have easy access. But it doesn’t mean that if they register, they can’t access the portal. The system exists, so if you’re registered you should be able to access it.”
Beyond education, many lawyers appear to be deterred from using the e-justice system as a result of system challenges and connectivity problems.
“The internet service must be, or the online service must be top-notch because there are issues with the online service such that sometimes when you send your clerks or you go there to file yourself as a lawyer, you would have issues with, or you would hear, I mean, commonly that the system is down.
“So, they basically may take your process manually and then when the system is up, then they can enable your file. And sometimes the system is down for two or three days because the online platform has a problem,” Lawyer Tsakpoe explained.
Lawyer Ebenezer Segbefia, agrees with these views. According to him, there is still a lot to be done to make the platform more inclusive and accessible such that other courts beyond the higher courts have access to file their cases using the electronic mode.
“As we speak it’s only also the registry that is able to use the e-justice system so parties as well as lawyers are handicapped when it comes to the e-justice system. I’m sure it’s at a very infantile state and going forward it should have widespread appeal across the legal system,” he told Laud Adu-Asare.
During the launch of the e-justice in 2019, then-Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo said all courts across the country should be connected to the system by 2025.
But addressing the issues of extension of the e-justice, Mr Nutifafa intimated that the timelines have been shifted to 2027. He noted that after consultations with the World Bank, efforts are being made for it to be extended to other courts across the country.
“We’re looking at rolling it out in five more regions. We’re looking at Ashanti, Eastern, Volta, and Tema Western.”
For the Superior courts, he disclosed that plans are already underway to implement them.
“Currently, as we speak, we have started the development of the e-justice for the Supreme Court based on the rules of court. We have also started the Court of Appeal and it is expected that this year this system will be developed and fully commissioned.
“For the district court which is the first port of call for most court users, we have started extensive work to also introduce e-justice based on their rules (CI 59). To the extent that we have done the business process reengineering of the district courts so that their rules when transposed to the e-realm can bring efficient processes.
“We are working with the Ministry of Trade and Finance to source funding from the World Bank to also develop the e-justice system for the district court,” he affirmed.
DPI
Digital Public Infrastructure refers to the fundamental digital systems or tools that enable essential services and support social activities for everyone. They comprise three main pillars; Digital Identity platform, Digital payment systems and data-sharing networks.
