Know The Law

Former Supreme Court Judge Prof. Justice V.C.R.A.C Crabbe says it�s about time Ghana creates its own jurisprudence especially as an independent country. Prof. Crabbe who was speaking on the Legal Education Programme on Citi FM traced the history of Ghana�s long legal systems to the British Colonial master. He attributed the current common law legal tradition being practiced in Ghana to the British Colonial rule in order to administer their rule in the colony; the British introduced their system of administration of justice. The introduction of the Supreme Court Ordinance 1853 established the British legal system in Ghana. Speaking on the need for a home grown legal system, Justice Crabbe stated �We don�t always have to look at British for what you do because if you take law, status or unwritten, you are dealing with something which the people in a particular area have evolved for themselves so you can�t have a situation where you are always looking somewhere else for the basis of what you determine as the law in your own country.� Currently under the country�s 1992 constitution Ghana�s legal system is a combination of the customary law of England and the customary law of Ghana. However Ghana�s constitution has a definition of the common law so that the average person or lawyers will not only think only in terms of the law as applied in England which we have inherited. V.C.R.A.C Crabbe on the programme also revealed that the Supreme Court ordinance 1853 set up a Supreme Court which used to be what we now call the High Court. He said we had the West Africa Court of Appeal and the Privy Council where cases determined by the court in Ghana went to the two institutions for final adjudication. This is not to overlook the native legal administration system which had the chief�s administer customary law in their courts.