The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Africa Office, organised a one-day sensitisation workshop, yesterday, on the effective utilisation of the Ghana Case Tracking System (CTS), at Takoradi.
CHRI held the event in collaboration with its local partners, Human Rights Development Foundation (HURDS), as part of its Justice Sector Support (JSS) Activity.
The CTS enables key actors in the delivery system to electronically access and tracks the various stages of criminal cases from the point of arrest through investigation, prosecution, conviction, and rehabilitation.
The workshop brought together representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs), Ministries, Departments, Agencies, People with Disabilities (PWDs), and traditional authorities.
The Government of Ghana launched the electronic CTS Project in 2018, to support key justice sector institutions to collect, collate and harmonise data for effective justice delivery.
The institutions are the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Prisons Service, the Attorney-General’s Department, Legal Aid Commission, Economic and Organised Crime Office, and Judicial Service.
Esther Ahulu, CHRI Public Education and Advocacy Specialist speaking at the workshop, said the main objective of the JSS Activity was to increase citizen oversight of criminal cases, strengthen advocacy for accountability of key justice sector institutions, improve justice delivery, and increase citizens’ knowledge and access to justice sector services in Ghana.
Ms. Ahulu said some prisoners have been on remand for so many years without any trial.
She said the CTS would allow stakeholders to monitor the beginning of cases from the entry point at the Ghana Police Service through the court to the prisons so that delays at offices would be monitored and officers’ attention would be drawn to continue the process.
Ms. Ahulu said her outfit was working in 40 districts across Greater Accra, Ashanti, Northern, Bono, Upper East, Volta, and Western regions to strengthen the advocacy of the justice sector institutions to improve the justice delivery system.
Chief State Attorney in the Western Region, Ms. Patience Klinogo, said if the CTS was very operative, accused without lawyers could be tracked and the necessary assistance offered them before court proceedings.
Deputy Superintendent of Prisons, Mr. Ibrahim Yakubu, said with “the CTS the Prisons can easily assess who is to be incarcerated because officers would religiously follow the process electronically online and make adequate preparations to receive such convicts.”
He said the CTS system would prompt the police, court, and prisons about ongoing cases to assist the prisons to digitise their work for easy accessibility.
The CHRI Team is composed of the Ghana Police Service, Prison Service, Legal Aid Commission, Attorney General’s Department and Economic and Organised Crime Office.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), CHRI, Crime Check Foundation (CCF), and Inter-regional Bridge Group (IBG) are the organisations implementing the USAID Justice Sector Support Activity, the funding agency.
FROM PETER GBAMBILA, TAKORAD
