The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, GodfredYeboah Dame, has sworn- in a six-member Governing Board for the Council for Law Reporting with the task for them to go digital in law reporting.
Swearing in the Board on Friday, Mr Dame said with the world now going digital, it was imperative the Council brought its operations in tune with the demands of modernity.
“With the proliferation of rival law reports and the availability of same on the world wide web at the click of a button, there is an immediate need for your council to go fully digital and improve the speed of law reporting.
“The tendency for the Ghana Law Reports to lag behind in terms of time must be a phenomenon of the past. Professional services are rapidly changing and we all have to adapt in response to the disruption forced upon by technology,” Mr Dame said.
In the view of the Attorney-General, failure to embrace technology and digitise may imply extinction of the Ghana Law Reports, and other publications the Council is authorised by law to engage in, and ultimately the Council.
Admitting that the Council was faced with both logistical and infrastructure challenges, Mr Dame said steps were being taken to improve the situation to make the task attainable.
He entreated the new Board to present to his office a comprehensive assessment of what was required for retooling the Council and pledged that once the new Attorney-General office is completed, a year from now, “I will ensure that the current office of the Council is fully rehabilitated into a modern edifice fit for purpose.”
The chairman of the Council and a Justice of the Supreme Court, Gabriel Pwamang, on behalf of his colleagues said they should approach their work with the best of their knowledge, experience and skills in order to uplift the image of the Council and bring the quality of their publications to the highest standards.
This, he said, could only be achieved with the support of the government.
Bemoaning the lack of attention to the Council, MrPwamang said “for a very long time, the Council has not been receiving any support” revealing that a recent donation of two vehicles to the Council was the “first time in a very long time that a government has thought it fit to supply brand new vehicles to the Council.”
He said unlike in other jurisdictions where reports are made available online and sell same to support the Council financially, same cannot be said about the country’s law reporting.
“We have plans to put such a system in place (to go digital) and to make sure the products we shall produce can become beneficial to people of this country and the legal sector in particular.
Other members of the Board are Madam Frederica SalaIliasu, representative of the Attorney-General, Anthony Forson Jnr, representative of the Ghana Bar Association, Samuel KwasiKusiDonkor, representative of the Ghana Publishing Company, Dr Samuel ObengManteaw, University of Ghana Law Faculty and Mrs Margaret Awuku-Gyekye, the Managing Director of the Ghana Law Reports.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
