Legal Aid Commission calls for enhanced paralegal services to boost justice delivery 

The Executive Director of the  Legal Aid Commission, Edmund Amarkwei Foley, has called for the strengthening of paralegal services to address the growing challenges in the country's justice delivery system.

Legal support

Highlighting the critical role of paralegals in providing frontline legal support, particularly for vulnerable populations, he said paralegals served as a revolving door, facilitating both entry and exit from the justice system for persons who needed such support.

“Contemporary developments in society present huge challenges to us as a developing nation. While we desire optimal justice delivery, we must contend with inadequate legal personnel, in the face of rising socio-economic challenges fuelling crime and delinquency, we need to explore new ways to address the problems of our time. 

“Thus, we have identified the need for paralegal services to augment our human resource strength and expertise in justice delivery,” he said.

Mr Foley made the call at a validation workshop for the Draft Paralegal Training Curriculum and Training Manual in Accra last Thursday.

The workshop organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ghana aimed to validate and enhance paralegal services in Ghana’s Prisons Service to advance access to justice and contribute to the achievement of SDG 16.3.

The initiative comes at a crucial time when Ghana is faced with significant challenges in its legal sector, including inadequate legal personnel and rising socio-economic issues that contribute to increasing crime rates. 

Therefore, Mr Foley said the enhancement of paralegal services would provide a solution to these pressing concerns.

The Programme Analyst for Gender and Human Rights at UNDP, Jennifer Asuako, said access to justice was a fundamental human right, however, many poor and vulnerable people were unable to realise it due to ineffective strategies and implementation.