A section of the public is calling for more education on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to enable people to take advantage of it for a faster and amicable settlement of disputes to de-congest the courts of cases.
The call was made in Sunyani during the national launch of ADR Week. It was held on the theme; “Making our courts more service friendly, through the use of ADR.”
The ADR week has been organised annually by the Judicial Service to create awareness on the need for people to use ADR in their quest to seek justice.
Contributing to a discussion on ADR during the launch, some participants said they seek redress at the law courts mainly because of their lack of understanding about how ADR works and how to take advantage of it.
They also complained about absence of basic stationery at the Sunyani High Court such as receipts, thereby impeding the smooth administration of justice, especially with regards to filing of cases.
Launching the week, a Court of Appeal Judge, Justice Irene Charity Larbi urged the public to use the ADR to seek redress.
She said the ADR programme has been extended to 131 places in the country with at least five mediators assigned to each of these courts.
Justice Larbi, who is also the Judge-in-Charge of ADR, said a total of 635 mediators have been trained and assigned to the ADR courts.
“From January to December 2018 a total of 4,148 cases were mediated out of which 2,122 cases were settled, representing a 51 per cent settlement rate,” she stated.
She further said “the ADR concept has served as a complement to the law courts in making access to justice cheaper, easier, expeditious and non-adversarial.”
“This has also helped in reducing the backlog of cases in the law courts substantially due to the mass mediation exercise.
This clearly indicates that the ADR mechanism is a reliable partner to the traditional justice delivery system and must therefore, be embraced and nurtured for a quality justice delivery system.”
FROM DANIEL DZIRASAH, SUNYANI
