All courts to have Alternative Dispute Resolution centres

All courts in the country are to have Alternative Dispute Resolution (CCADR) centres attached to them by 2017.

Only 57 out of the 333 district and circuit courts in the country provide ADR services.

The Judge-in-Charge of ADR, Justice Mrs Irene Larbi, made this known when she launched this year’s ADR Week at Amasaman, near Accra.

The ADR Week is used to create awareness of the use of ADR as a means of settling some disputes.

Funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Judicial Service of Ghana, German Agency for International Cooperation (giz) and the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), the ADR was piloted in selected courts in Accra and Tema between 2005 and 2007.

According to Mrs Larbi, ADR had helped to decongest the courts wherever they had been used.

She said regional ADR secretariats had been established in all the 10 regions to help the National ADR Directorate with the implementation of the ADR programme in all the regions.

Achievements

Between 2008 and 2014, Mrs Larbi said 34,701 cases were mediated, out of which 16,913, representing 49 per cent, were settled.

The ADR concept, she said, had complemented the traditional court system by making access to justice cheaper, easier, expeditious, non-adversarial and faster. 

However, she said, cases such as rape, defilement, murder, armed robbery and other first degree felonies could not be settled through arbitration.

ADR Process

Mrs Larbi said the ADR processes, although optional, were very effective and guaranteed the interest of both parties, adding that parties were involved in every aspect of the process.

She said agreements reached at the end of the process were sent to the court for adoption as a consent judgement, thereby making the terms of settlement enforceable by the court.

On initiating an ADR process, Mrs Larbi said at any stage of proceedings, a court could refer a matter to be adjudicated by ADR or any of the parties involved in a case could request ADR during trail.

Training

So far, she said, 215 mediators had been trained and assigned to all the 57 courts connected to ADR services.

Also, she said, with the realisation that land-related cases were dominant in the courts, Mrs Larbi said 30 surveyors had been trained and would be used as mediators on pilot bases to help reduce the backlog of land cases in the Greater Accra Region, especially.

The Judicial Service, she said, had initiated a process to set up an independent ADR Fund to sustain the programme in the near future.