Pg 11 Tues April 15
By Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE provision of legal aid is a constitutional obligation, as well as a civil and human right for people who cannot afford the services of private legal practitioners.
The Legal Aid Board was thus established under the Legal Aid Scheme Act, 1997, “to provide efficient and effective legal services to the poor in the Ghanaian society at minimal cost, to enable them to defend and prosecute their human and legal rights”.
Apart from the Board, which is a government agency, there are other non-government agencies, which include the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) - Ghana, which set up the first Legal Aid Programme in the country in 1985.
The services rendered by FIDA, Ghana, is known as the Ghana FIDA Legal Aid Clinic and target mostly indigent women and children. The services include free legal advice, arbitration and counselling, as well as representation in court for indigent persons who cannot otherwise afford the services of a lawyer.
Recently, during a visit by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mrs Oboshie Sai Cofie, to the Nsawam Female Medium Security, the female inmates called for legal aid to be extended to them.
Reacting to the calls by the inmates, an Assistant Director of Prisons in charge of the Nsawam Female Prisons, Madam Charity Araba Magnusen, confirmed their plight and explained that lawyers no longer visited the women to provide free legal services.
According to her, that had made a number of them serve their full prison terms because they did not have the resources to contract the services of lawyers to appeal against their conviction.
The situation at Nsawam is no different from many of the country’s prisons, as most of these incarcerated women, as well as some men, are ignorant of some of the laws in the country and how they can use them to their advantage.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the Legal Aid Scheme, Mr Martin C. Nwosu, said in an interview that the situation needed further attention since prisoners, just like any other person living in the country, were covered by the Legal Aid Act.
Explaining who was qualified to benefit from the scheme, he said it was to provide efficient and effective legal service for poor Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians in the country who had a reasonable ground for taking, defending, prosecuting or being a party to any legal proceedings.
The Legal Aid Scheme Act, 1997 (Act 542) Subsection One states that “For the purposes of enforcing any provision of the Constitution, a person is entitled to legal aid in connection with any proceedings relating to the Constitution if he/she has reasonable grounds for taking, defending, prosecuting or being a party to the proceedings”.
Subsection Two, goes further to state that “A person shall also be entitled to legal aid – (a) if he earns the Government minimum wage or less and desires legal representation in any – (i) criminal matter; or (ii) civil matter relating to landlord and tenant, insurance, inheritance with particular reference to the Interstate Succession Law, 1985 (PNDCL 111), maintenance of children and such other civil matters as may from time to time be prescribed by Parliament; or (b) if in the opinion of the Board, the person requires legal aid.
The Act further states in Subsection (3) that “For the purposes of this Act, legal aid shall consist of representation by a lawyer, including all such assistance as is given by a lawyer, in the steps preliminary or incidental to any proceedings or arriving at or giving effect to a compromise to avoid or to bring an end to any proceedings.
According to Mr Nwosu, the Act further mandated that people seeking legal aid must first come to the offices of the Board and go through the necessary procedures, stressing that what could be done for prisoners was for either relatives or prison officers to make a formal request to the offices of the scheme in any of its 10 regional offices across the country.
Mr Nwosu said officers from the scheme could only move in to offer services to prisoners when they made initial moves and fulfil the necessary requirements.
The most worrying issue, he said, was the case of people who were on remand. He said these people could have their cases dragging to the extent of they themselves sometimes getting forgotten about and therefore not having the opportunity to access justice and this, he said, was one of the major factors causing congestion in most prisons in the country.
The scheme, enshrined in Article 294 of the 1992 Constitution, presently covers about 10 thematic areas, which include both civil and criminal cases, and most of the cases predominantly dealt with yearly by the Board had to do with child maintenance and inter-state succession.
Liaising with the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS), FIDA and the Department of Social Welfare, the scheme, Mr Nwuso said, last year dealt with 265 cases of child maintenance and 495 cases of interstate succession.
According to him, about 90 to 95 per cent of applicants who applied for legal aid qualified to be represented by the scheme and said so far the success rate had been phenomenal.
He said the scheme, to help in easing the congestion in the country’s prisons, had ventured into mediation and arbitration of cases, but represented their clients in court in cases that really needed to be taken to court.
Giving statistics on the operations of the scheme, he said in 2006, it received 1,847 cases out of which 96, representing 11.6 per cent were settled and in 2007, a total of 2,969 cases were received and 232 representing 17.2 per cent, were settled amicably.
What, however, was retarding the efforts of the scheme, according to Mr Nwosu, was the issue of logistics, which included transport and office stationery, adding that presently, the scheme worked with 12 private lawyers, who, according to the Regional Director, were paid stipend and this, he said, was also discouraging most lawyers in private practice from assisting them.
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