{"id":116450,"date":"2026-02-22T15:30:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=116450"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:30:26","slug":"specialised-courts-afternoon-sittings-to-tackle-case-delays-judicial-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=116450","title":{"rendered":"Specialised courts, afternoon sittings to tackle case delays- Judicial Secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Judicial Secretary, Musah Ahmed, says the judiciary has put in place a comprehensive system designed to tackle the long-standing problem of case delays \u2014 one that combines the newly established Specialised High Court Division with afternoon courts to significantly reduce the workload on individual judges.<\/p>\n

Ahmed made the remarks on The Law<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/span>on Joy News, providing the most detailed explanation yet of how the reforms introduced by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie will work in practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system we are creating has taken care of all those delays,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cWe have put in place now a new system which seeks to transform the system where one particular judge is given different subject matters to try, for which reason he\u2019s touching on various subjects before him, which could lead to inefficiency and delays.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the heart of the new approach is a simple but significant shift: reducing the number of cases before any single judge. Ahmed explained that afternoon courts will play a key role in this, with cases redistributed from morning sessions to afternoon court judges to ease the burden on their counterparts handling the morning docket \u2014 including those sitting in the specialised courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are doing now is to reduce the number of cases before a particular judge. This then calls for the establishment of the afternoon courts so that we will push a number of those cases to the afternoon court judges to try them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The old model, Ahmed argued, was a recipe for slowness. A judge juggling different subject matters across unrelated cases \u2014 from land disputes to financial crimes to cybersecurity \u2014 could not reasonably be expected to deliver swift, focused decisions. The new model flips that logic entirely.<\/p>\n

Under the reformed system, judges in the Specialised High Court Division are assigned cases within a defined subject area. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are assigned specific cases; they effectively deal with them as a subject, and then they dispose of them with dispatch,\u201d Ahmed explained.<\/p>\n

The Specialised High Court Division, formally established through a Chief Justice circular on February 5, 2026, covers corruption and public accountability, natural resources and galamsey, state asset recovery, and organised crime and security.<\/p>\n

Complementing this, the Chief Justice ordered that High Court offices remain open from 8:00 am to 6:30 pm on weekdays \u2014 creating the operational window needed to run both morning and afternoon court sessions effectively.<\/p>\n

The reforms come amid years of public frustration over how long it takes Ghanaian courts to resolve high-profile cases, particularly those involving corruption and galamsey. Cases that have dragged on for years with little movement have eroded public trust in the justice system, making the pressure on the judiciary to act both immense and urgent.<\/p>\n

The Judicial Service is also revising the Rules of Court, expected to come into force by March 2026, alongside technological innovations to further enhance the delivery of justice.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Judicial Secretary, Musah Ahmed, says the judiciary has put in place a comprehensive system designed to tackle the long-standing problem of case delays \u2014 one that combines the newly established Specialised High Court Division with afternoon courts to significantly reduce the workload on individual judges.<\/p>\n

Ahmed made the remarks on The Law\u00a0on Joy News, providing the most detailed explanation yet of how the reforms introduced by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie will work in practice.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17336,1883,10,9,10883],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afternoon-sittings","category-national","category-politics","category-popular","category-special-courts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}