Chieftaincy cases pending before C/R House of Chiefs

Cape Coast, Nov. 6, GNA - The Central Region House of Chiefs currently has 86 chieftaincy cases pending before it due to the absence of a counsel to guide the judicial committee of the House in settling the disputes.

The Regional Minister, Mr Isaac Edumadze, said this when he opened a two-day workshop on "Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) training" programme for members of the Central Region House of Chiefs at Cape Coast on Thursday.

The workshop was organised by the Ghana Association of Chattered Mediators and Arbitrators (GHACMA) in collaboration with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).

He said as a result, the Judicial Committee of the House had not been able to dispose of even a single case for the past few years and that the situation was breeding impatience and frustrations on the part of litigants.

The Minister observed that most disputes in the region revolved around chieftaincy and land matters and stressed that currently, petitions alone pending before the regional House was 30 and called for out of court settlement through the ADR.

He commended the organisers for targeting "Nananom" and stressed that their role as the key players in the various communities would enable them help litigants to resort to alternative means of dispute resolution in order to decongest the courts.

Mr Edumadze urged the participants to use their expertise in conflict resolution at the traditional level, to help the organisers design new strategies at managing disputes in the various communities.

A private legal practitioner, Mr Martin Nwosu, said current statistics indicate that more than 60,000 land dispute cases were pending before the Superior courts in Accra alone and that on the average it takes between five to eight years to have such cases to be disposed of.

He expressed regret that some of the cases had been pending before the courts between 20 to 40 years and in some cases, the parties, judges and the lawyers are dead.

Mr Nwosu said as agents of change, it was appropriate that traditional rulers received the necessary exposure to alternative methods of resolving disputes that promote access to justice. Chiefs should therefore, ensure that they adopt the system to ensure peace at all times.

He stressed that if parties of litigation should be aware of this alternative method of resolving conflicts, certain issues would not be sent to the law courts.

In his welcoming address, Nana Atta Amanafo Poku II, President of the Central Region House of Chiefs, said due to lack of funds, the House had not been able to engage the services of a counsel to help settle the numerous cases pending before it.

He appealed to chiefs to protect the good name of the chieftaincy institution by avoiding conflicts and living up to expectation.