Chief Justice declares 2022 nationwide ADR week from March 14-18

The Chief Justice, his Lordship Kwasi Anin-Yeboah has declared March 14-18, 2022 as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) week at lower courts nationwide.

This was announced in a press release from the Judicial Service.

According to the statement, the focus of the week is to reduce the backlog of cases at the participating courts.

The 2022 ADR week has been themed, ‘Making our Courts user friendly through the use of ADR’, and to mark the official opening, there will be a press conference on March 14, 2022, at the High Court in Ho, Volta Region. 

“The 131 Courts, comprising 33 Circuit Courts and 98 District Courts shall participate by devoting the whole week for settlement of Court cases with ADR across the country,” the statement said.

Background

ADR has been adopted by the Judicial Service as part of its adjudication process dubbed “Court-connected ADR”. 

The aim of the programme is to ensure that access to justice in Ghana is made easier, cheaper, non-adversarial, expeditious, and flexible to all.

Pursuant to this, the Chief Justice in a policy directive has instituted an ADR week in every legal year term to give parties the opportunity to settle their cases through mediation and to run programmes and activities to create awareness on the availability of ADR as a compliment to the adjudication process in the courts. 

Speaking at the launch of 2021 ADR Week in Koforidua, Justice Irene-Charity Larbi, a Court of Appeal justice and judge – in-charge of ADR mentioned that the ADR system for dispute resolution is yielding results.

Quoting statistics, she said from January to December 2020, a total of 5,455 cases were mediated under ADR.