Use Alternative Dispute Resolution to settle cases - Justice Adjei

A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Dennis Adjei, has advocated the frequent use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in courts to facilitate peaceful resolution in civil cases.

He said resolution of disputes outside the trial process helped to promote business relationships, family relationships, national unity and cohesion.

Justice Adjei was speaking as a representative of the Chief Justice, Justice Anin Yeboah, at the 21st graduation and 22nd induction ceremony of the Gamey and Gamey ADR Institute, which was held in Accra last Saturday.

According to him, the courts were inundated with numerous cases which made it difficult for them to deal with the cases expeditiously, hence the need to employ the services of arbitrators, mediators and negotiators under the ADR.

“Cases settled under ADR promote win-win results and the parties accept the awards unconditionally and, therefore, do away with acrimonious relationship which has negative impact on national unity and cohesion,” he stated.

The Court of Appeal judge added that although the Judicial Service had trained about 290 mediators, there was the need to train more considering the frequency of civil disputes.

ADR

The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010 (Act 798) was passed into law in 2010 to provide an alternative mode of resolving civil disputes such as disputes in marriage, business transactions , family issues, among others.

ADR falls outside the normal trial system and employs methods such as arbitration, mediation and negotiations.

Ceremony

A total of 11 students graduated from the institute while 30 students were inducted to pursue Professional Executive Master of Appropriate Dispute Resolution (PEM ADR).

The PEM ADR, the longest running ADR masters training programme in Africa, which is organised in collaboration with the Pulse Institute and the University of Virgins Islands (UVI-PULSE), USA, so far has had close to 500 participants.

The graduates are made up of surveyors, police officers, human resource managers, among other practitioners.

The class president, who spoke on behalf of the 21st cohort, Ms Mary Maklus Klutse, recounting their journey through the 26 weeks of intensive lectures, commended the facilitators for devoting their time in sharing experiences beyond the classroom.

“We are prepared to take our destinies into our own hands, after all we have been trained by the best in Ghana and in the whole world and we do not need an award just to prove that we have acquired special knowledge of ADR,” she said.

Ms Klutse urged the graduating class to make the maximum use of the knowledge they had acquired to preserve relationships among disputants.

Election 2020

In his speech, The Chief Executive Officer of the Gamey and Gamey Group, Mr Austin Gamey, observed that some of the political parties were not in the best of relationship as far as the new voters register was concerned.

He said in the middle of all that, the Electoral Commission (EC) was also poised to begin the new voters registration exercise adding that “clearly, there is a problem which needs to be solved.”

Mr Gamey stressed the need for the EC to accept to participate in the mediation offer he proposed to solve the growing differences it had with its stakeholders over the new voters register.

“As professional mediators, our effort is to make an offer to the EC and its stakeholders to come around to resolve their differences without tension. We do not need more than 180 hours to resolve this amicably” he said.

Mr Gamey further appealed to the Chief Justice, through his representative, Justice Dennis Adjei, to permit professionals of the institute to use mediation to assist the courts to resolve some of the divorce cases and other civil cases.