A judge of the Court of Appeal has called court users in Ghana to embrace Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms as a tool for resolution of disputes to ensure expeditious determination of cases brought before the courts.
Justice Angelina Mensah-Homiah, who made the call, said the adoption of ADR in settling disputes has enormous benefits for both parties as well as the courts.
“We don’t want litigation to be the norm in Ghana and so we want court users to embrace ADR,” she told the media after engaging leadership of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) on the benefits of ADR in Kumasi.
The engagement formed part of a week-long pre-activities ahead of the 2025 ADR week scheduled for March 17-21on the theme: “Building the Pillars of Justice through Commercial Justice ADR.”
Other institutions engaged by the Judicial Service team were Sinapa Aba savings and Loans and Pacific Savings and Loans.
The theme for the ADR week which would be launched on March 17 in Kumasi, highlights the importance of commercial justice, hence the engagements with the business community in the Ashanti Region.
Justice Mensah-Homiah who has additional responsibility for Court-Connected ADR, said the introduction of ADR mechanisms into the justice delivery system since 2005 had been very successful with over 38,000 cases resolved through ADR over the years.
“It is our hope that because of the massive sensitisation that we have done this week, when we come back on the 17th to launch the ADR Week we will have a lot more of cases to settle,” she noted.
The Courts, according to her, are inundated with both civil and criminal cases, a situation, which informed the decision of the Chief Justice to constitute a committee to look into various ways of dealing with the case backlog and ADR was recommend by the committee.
She disclosed that in other jurisdictions like the United States of America, only three per cent of cases go to trial because they utilise a lot of ADR mechanisms to resolve disputes.
Justice Mrs. Dorinda Smith Arthur, A High Court Judge who was part of the Judicial Service team, entreated members of GUTA to choose the path of cooperation in resolving their disputes rather than litigation.
She said prolonged cases could only hurt their businesses by denying them adequate time to concentrate on their sources of livelihoods.
Ms. Christiana Puorideme, a Chief ADR Officer, urged the participants to take advantage of a mass adjudication of cases during the ADR Week to resolve their disputes.