Ghana’s President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has inaugurated an e-Justice project which is aimed at improving the country’s justice delivery process.

The launch of the paperless court system signals a widespread adoption of digital technologies in justice in Africa, with countries like Rwanda and Morocco having introduced theirs earlier.

“The Project is attempting to help ensure that the law keeps pace with technology, ending the age-old “missing dockets” phenomenon and endless litigations, which have plagued the efficient delivery of justice in the country for several years,” President Akufo-Addo said at the launch last week.

This development follows the introduction of the e-case register in May 2018, by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. The register contains information such as case titles, offence types, gender of accused persons, contact details of the police station, investigators and attorneys directly involved with a case, amongst others.

“Through the e-Justice Project, an electronic platform is being provided for process filing, process service, fee assessments, and online payments. The platform, additionally, automatically assigns cases to courts and judges, a clear departure from the days of manual assignments, which had the tendency to pervert the course of justice,” the president explained.

More so, when the project is fully executed, information about the number of convicts, dates convicted, nature of offences, number of persons on remand or who are simply being processed for court, amongst others, will be shared with the relevant state institutions.

Since President Akufo-Addo assumed office in 2017, several policy measures have been introduced to help bridge the technology-gap in the justice delivery system.