Ghana’s Judicial Service is considering outsourcing its mandatory pre-trial (mediation) conferences at the Commercial Courts to external professional mediators.
According to Mr. Alex Nartey, National ADR Coordinator of the Judicial Service, the move is to enhance the mandatory ADR system in the commercial courts.
Mr. Nartey, who announced the outsourcing plan when the Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo launched the ADR Week celebration at the Supreme Court in Accra on Monday, for the current Legal Term, said it is part of efforts to reinforce the ADR structure in the judicial system for more gains.
The Service runs a mandatory Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the Commercial Courts in which all commercials cases are subjected to a pre-trial conference to consider an amicable resolution without trial.
However, the conferences are chaired by the same trial Judges, most of whom are not professional ADR practitioners, are overburdened with cases and not have time and patience for the ADR processes, resulting in low settlement rates.
The move to outsource the task to external professional mediators, follows numerous calls by ADR practitioners for the pre-trial conference to be handled by professional mediators.
As part of the interventions to enhance the ADR regime in the service, the Chief Justice recently announced plans to make ADR mandatory in the general judicial system in which ADR will be a pre-condition for all civil cases filed at the courts.
Although the settlement rate of the Court-Connected ADR Programme average 49 per cent from 2007 to 2017, the Service believes more could be achieved by exploring all opportunities in the ADR industry.
In that regard, the Service has established 10 Regional ADR Secretariats to promote ADR in the courts across the country, as well as expanded the ADR courts from 87 to 107 district and circuit courts.
Chief Justice Akuffo, launching the ADR Week, noted that some 590 mediators have been trained, out of which five each have been assigned to the 107 ADR designated courts.
In 2017, a total of 3,486 cases were mediated under the Court Connected ADR Programme, out of which 1,571 cases were settled successfully, representing a 45 per cent settlement rate.
“We can do better,” said the Chief Justice, and therefore, charged Judges to be more ADR focused so as to help parties to resort to ADR, which remains more beneficial than court litigation.
By Edmund Mingle/adrdaily.com
