Ghana Judiciary goes MoMo

Ghana’s Judiciary will start accepting payments through mobile money, Chief Justice (CJ) Sophia Akuffo has revealed. The Judiciary is set to implement a paperless system to improve the quality of justice delivery by incorporating e-payment systems into its operations…

Ghana’s Judiciary will start accepting payments through mobile money, Chief Justice (CJ) Sophia Akuffo has revealed.

The Judiciary is set to implement a paperless system to improve the quality of justice delivery by incorporating e-payment systems into its operations.

According to Justice Akuffo, the e-justice system will enable legal practitioners to file cases and complaints electronically and use online and mobile money platforms to pay legal fees.

The Chief Justice made this known in a statement read on her behalf by His Lordship Justice Gabriel Pwamang at the First Africa Region Data Protection and Privacy Conference in Accra.

“the e-justice system will be a paperless system and will enable us to store and track cases. Relevant persons will be able to electronically file cases and complaints, track the status of their cases as well as make online and mobile money payments for court transactions,” the speech indicated.

The CJ expressed optimism that the new system will make it possible for court users to get instant notification of all adjournments via short messages or email.

“This thing will become a tangible solution to many of the challenges that we face in the delivery of quality justice to our people.

To this end, she appealed for a holistic data protection regime in accordance with the laws. “This includes actively involving ourselves with cybersecurity issues as well, which go hand in hand with data protection”.

For her part, the President of the African Network of Data Protection Authorities, Margaret Ouedraogo Bonane said her outfit is mapping up an action plan to get a data protection authority to set up in many African countries.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Rights to Privacy, Professor Joe Cannataci, also challenged African countries to set up a data protection authority to achieve the UN global benchmark of data protection and rights to privacy.

Sixteen of 55 African countries have passed data protection laws. Only Ghana and South Africa have Data Protection Commissions. They are members of the African Network of Data Protection Authorities.

Nigeria has enacted the data protection law but failed to set up a Commission, which makes them fall below the Council of Europe’s Convention 108 on data protection benchmark.

According to Prof Cannataci, the UN global standard demands that member states scale up efforts to protect and promote rights to privacy within the cyberspace.

In an exclusive interview with Class91.3FM’s Jerry Akornor ahead of the First Africa Region Data Protection and Privacy Conference in Accra, Prof. Cannataci charged African governments to show courage within the cyberspace.

Contributing to the discussion, the Executive Director of the Data Protection Commission in Ghana, Patricia Adusei-Poku said efforts are being made to engage the AU and ECOWAS to enable member states to pass data protection laws and establish data protection commissions.