Tribunals Are The Wrong Answer To Ghana’s Justice Delay Problem

Ghana’s democratic experiment cannot afford a retreat into institutions we deliberately proscribed. As the NDC government under President John Dramani Mahama contemplates reintroducing a tribunal system to fast-track cases, the proposal must be interrogated not only on legal grounds, but on historical and practical ones. We have been here before, and the outcome was the erosion of due process.

*The Historical Reason Tribunals Were Proscribed*
Tribunals were abolished because they operated outside the constitutional architecture of independent courts. During their existence, they functioned with truncated procedures that limited legal representation, restricted appeals, and concentrated discretionary power in panels answerable to the executive. That design made them susceptible to political manipulation. Ghana proscribed them to align with Article 19 of the 1992 Constitution, which guarantees a fair and public hearing before an independent and impartial court. To revive them now is to re-legitimize a parallel justice system that the framers of our Constitution rejected as incompatible with the rule of law.

*Threat To Judicial Independence And Civil Liberties*
The reintroduction of tribunals carries an immediate risk of politicization. In a highly polarized polity, any special court created by executive fiat will be perceived as a tool for targeting opponents, regardless of its stated mandate. We have already seen how selective prosecutions damage public trust. Tribunals, by their very structure, amplify that risk because they sit outside the appellate chain and established rules of evidence. The consequence will be a chilling effect on free expression, business confidence, and civic participation, the very things a democracy requires to thrive.

*There Is A Better Alternative: A 24-Hour Court Shift System*
If the objective is speed and efficiency, then the answer is not to create new, constitutionally suspect institutions. The answer is to maximize the ones we already have. Ghana can adopt a shift system within the existing judiciary to fulfill the 24-Hour Economy plan in the court system.
Instead of judges and court staff closing at 3pm, we could deploy two or three shifts. Morning, afternoon, and evening benches would allow more cases to be heard daily without compromising due process. Additional judges can be recruited and remunerated for evening sittings, court registries digitized, and case management automated. This approach delivers expedition while preserving the safeguards of the superior courts: full legal representation, transparent procedure, and access to appeal. It also aligns with the government’s economic agenda by signaling that justice, like commerce, can operate beyond traditional hours.

*Invest In The Courts We Have, Not Parallel Structures*
The real crisis in our justice delivery is under-resourcing, not the absence of tribunals. Courtrooms lack recording equipment. Dockets are overstretched. Legal aid is inadequate. Pouring resources into a tribunal system duplicates infrastructure and undermines the authority of the High Court and Circuit Court. A better use of public funds is to expand judicial capacity, invest in technology, and incentivize night sittings. That is reform. Tribunals are regression.

Ghana made a deliberate choice in 1992 to proscribe tribunals because they were antithetical to constitutional governance. That choice was correct then and it is correct now. President Mahama’s government should resist the temptation of shortcuts and instead modernize the judiciary through a shift system that delivers timely justice without sacrificing fairness.

The legitimacy of our democracy depends on it.

Author: Tony Mark-Boye