Elmina, Dec. 2, GNA - The Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has appealed to the public to desist from enticing staff of the judiciary including judges with gifts in the course of seeking justice. "Judicial corruption is the worse form of moral degradation and everything must be done to uproot it" she said and urged the public to resist "with all their might" those in the judiciary who make financial demands on them.

The Chief Justice was speaking at the eighth 'Chief Justice's Forum' on the theme "Access to justice: a collective responsibility towards a transparent and accountable judiciary" in Elmina. She described a recent validation report of the National African Peer Review Mechanism (NAPRM) in the Central Region that said the Judicial and the Police services were among the most corrupt institutions in the region as "most unfortunate".

Mrs Justice Wood said the fight against corruption should not be just a slogan but a national crusade where all stakeholders should collectively participate in stemming it for the Judicial Service to achieve its dream of being among the best in the sub-region. Referring to land and chieftaincy disputes in particular, the Chief Justice appealed to traditional rulers and opinion leaders to also help curb corruption by desisting from influencing judges to adjudicate cases in their favour.

She said lawyers should also stop influencing judges, desist from delaying cases unduly and be quick to resort to Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) for redress.

Mrs Justice Wood said her administration had undertaken some interventions to fight corruption in the service and that a "Public Complaints Unit" has been set up for people to report "any incident of untoward behaviour" on the part of workers of the service and appealed to the public to take advantage of it.

Mrs Justice Wood said publications on the code of conduct of the service had been made available to judges, magistrates and all other staff to guide their actions while all magistrate and district court fines had been directed to be paid to rural banks in their areas of operations. She said justice must be accessible to all and therefore the Service must be transparent and accountable to win public trust, adding that lack of accountability breeds culture of insecurity.

Touching on promotions in the service, the Chief Justice said they would be carried out on merit rather than long service, and urged the staff to avail themselves of in-service training and other courses to upgrade themselves. On staff welfare, she said ffices and residential accommodation would be built in the regions while the upwards adjustment of their remunerations were also being considered Prof Philip Bondzie-Simpson, the Dean of School of Business at the University of Cape Coast, said a survey Showed that some courts in the region are operating under very strenuous conditions with most of the court buildings in deplorable state.

He mentioned lack of logistics, absence of qualified key personnel and the inadequate number of staff in general as the bane of the smooth administration of justice in the region if not the country as a whole. To address the situation he suggested an increase of the intake into the Ghana School of Law, further courses and in-service training initiated through the collaboration of the service and the UCC to enhance performance. The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Ebo Barton-Odro who chaired the function, identified high legal fees and delays in the adjudication of cases as factors that hindered smooth access to justice and expressed the hope that all courts in the country would be fast tracked to curb the situation.