The Minority in Parliament has lamented the GH₵33 million allocated to the Legal Aid Commission, describing it as woefully inadequate.
According to the minority, the Commission needs sufficient funding considering the fact that it is to ensure equality access to justice and treatment before the law by serving as a public defender for persons who are unable to foot the cost of litigation in court.
It noted that for years, the Commission has been underfunded and failed to attract legal practitioners from the private sector due to poor working conditions.
Speaking on the issue, minority spokesperson on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Bernard Ahiafor, stated that government must understand the gravitas of the situation.
He explained that if the state doesn’t show enough seriousness in addressing the adequate resources for the commission to work effectively, then other considerations must be made.
“Mr. Speaker if we want Legal Aid as an autonomous body being established by an act of parliament then with all due respect as a country, we need to pay some attention to this particular institution. If we don’t want the Legal Aid Commission to exist, let us abolish it so that we know we do not have legal aid.”
Bernard Ahiafor
Furthermore, Mr Ahiafor contended that it is not enough to establish the Legal Aid Commission with responsibility to go down to the districts, regional, and not only at the national level, especially so with this kind of budgetary allocation.
He explained that the Legal Aid Commission is not an individual to be given a “CAPEX budgetary allocation of GHC3 million”.
“Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the legal aid, I am on my knee that the way and manner additional resources are provided for other institutions, we have to do the same for legal aid if we really want legal aid to perform its duties and responsibilities.”
Bernard Ahiafor
Bia East legislator argues for more budgetary allocation
On his part, a member of parliament for Bia East, Richard Acheampong, argued that due to the low budgetary allocation to the commission, it has become unattractive to most legal practitioners.
In light of this, he stated that it has resulted in large swathes of the country being left without the service of the legal aid commission.
“Together with the Attorney General’s office, many seasoned lawyers don’t want to work there because their conditions of service are very bad. And we’re pretending… So, if you talk to somebody, ‘oh go to legal aid’, what is there?’ they can’t do anything for you.
“They don’t even have vehicles to traverse the length and breadth of this country in order to even support our people who are in need. Let’s put all the northern zone together, Savannah, Upper East, Northern Region and the rest. We have a lot of people who have cases, because of financial constraints, they can’t go to the court for a proper adjudication.”
Richard Acheampong
Furthermore, Mr Acheampong highlighted that the right system is not there to support these persons within the commission, and they can’t also travel to the south to access such facilities.
“So, Mr. Speaker let’s be frank to ourselves and do what is right. Let’s put our money where our mouth is.”
Richard Acheampong
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