The fate of thousands of Ghanaians living below the minimum wage who need legal representation continues to hang in the balance because of the dire state of the Legal Aid Scheme, meant to provide legal assistance to such persons.
Established in 1987 by law, the Scheme is now bedeviled with almost every challenge known to a typical public institution in Ghana.
Its biggest woe is space.
Currently, it occupies only a section section of the ground floor of the Council for Law Reporting building in Accra.
This affords it only 7 rooms to operate both the head office and the regional office.
The Legal Aid Scheme is also heavily understaffed as it only has 21 lawyers and 40 alternative dispute resolution personnel serving its 10 regional offices and 16 district offices.
In Accra, the Scheme has to depend on only 4 lawyers and 4 mediators for all its cases.
A worker at the scheme, Saani Mahmoud Adbul-Rasheed said the workload is unbearable.
“Sometimes the work is just too much and then you cannot look at people in the face and tell them you cannot assist them simply because you are just a few people doing a whole lot of work” he said.
The scheme cannot afford to provide workers with computers thus they are compelled to use their personal laptops. Sometimes, the office can be plunged into darkness for days when the electricity pre-paid credit runs out.
The situation in turn leaves the dozens of poor people who come the Scheme to seek legal help frustrated. Ultimately, the snail paced processes delays the justice people so-desperately need.
Getrude Kotey, a beneficiary of the scheme who Citi News about her dissatisfaction
“The other day, I spent the whole day there because there not enough laptops to draft down the issue before it gets to the lawyer to go through” she lamented.
The Ghana Legal Aid Scheme
Ghana Legal Aid Scheme is a public service organisation within the Justice delivery system of Ghana.
It is one of the component institutions over which the Ministry for Justice has oversight responsibility and operates countrywide from ten (10) offices in all the Regional capitals.
The Scheme is tasked under the Legal Aid Scheme Act 1997 (Act 542) to provide legal assistance to the poor and indigent, as well as other persons in the prosecution and defence of their rights under the Constitution of Ghana
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By: Nii Armah Ammah/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
The post ‘Poor Ghanaians’ not getting help from struggling Legal Aid Scheme appeared first on Citi Newsroom.
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