Report Credible And Provable Allegations In Judiciary � JC Tells Public

The Chief Justice, Her Lordship Georgina Theodora Wood has urged members of the public to report credible and provable allegations of malfeasance and ill-conduct against staff of the Judicial Service. She said such complaints should be made to the Complaints Unit of the Service for investigation. This was contained in a speech read on her behalf, by the Supervising High Court Judge, Justice Edward Amoako Asante, at the inaugural ceremony of the Complaints and Public Relations Unit of the Judicial Service at the Sekondi High Court. The Chief Justice said any complaint in writing through the Unit would be investigated and appropriate sanctions meted out to culprits. Caution She however cautioned that the unit would not deal with faceless, baseless, un-provable and frivolous complaints and allegations by members of the public who just want to have innocent staff penalized for doing their work in the way that would not favour them. The Chief Justice also reminded members of the public who were not satisfied with certain judicial decisions that they had no place at the Unit but that redress lay in an appeal. Chief Justice Wood advised such parties seeking redress to promptly appeal against such decisions and orders rather than write petitions against the decision makers because those complaints would not be countenanced. New era She said in times past, persons who were aggrieved by the decisions of the court had only one avenue for redress and that was to appeal against the decision. �However, those who are aggrieved, not by the decisions but certain untoward conduct of judges and judicial staff alike, hitherto had no clear way of redress. Such persons were left to their fate,� she said. She said though the appeal procedure was still available to those who genuinely need to resort to it, the judicial service had reached a new self-cleansing era with persons aggrieved by conducts and occurrences in the course of their resort to the courts. These persons she said could boldly bring their genuine grievances and complaints to the unit for redress saying, �the unit exits basically to take and investigate complaints and allegations against the bench and staff of the Judicial Service, provide the forum for redress and ensure decent performance by staff among other functions.