A lot has been written about access to justice generally. So there have been conferences at which papers were delivered addressing access to justice broadly.

These policy dialogues that WiLDAF Ghana will be organizing will focus on the special case of women and their access to justice. Linked to this, discussions will also focus on how women’s access to justice affects their participation in the development processes of Ghana. These dialogues will explore the problems of women accessing justice within a plural legal system. And provide recommendations to government on how to take the needed steps to address women’s access to justice forward.

As Ghana develops various economic agenda including the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, it has become increasingly important to address myriad challenges and to introduce new ways of doing things including gender mainstreaming. At the same time, Ghana has signed and or ratified a number of important international women’s rights treaties that require that it takes conscious measures aimed at advancing women’s concerns. Some of these are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination, the Beijing Platform for Action, the Millennium Development Goals, the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women.

Within government’s development agenda and these international agreements, one critical factor that requires consideration is women's access to justice. Ghana cannot boast that it has consistently put in place adequate measures that assure women of satisfactory justice within our plural legal systems.

These policy dialogues focus on women as a special group because of the challenges that confront them in their daily quest for justice in one conflict or the other. Whether it is a matter relating to her body (domestic violence), relating to property (acquired with a partner or entitled due to inheritance); relating to title or access and control to land (whether she comes from a matrilineal or a patrilineal family background) or relating to a third party (seeking maintenance, custody, paternity etc.) of a child, women go through daunting challenges within the existing legal systems to get justice.

Agreeably, the plural legal system is there to offer flexibility and individual choice, yet to the ordinary woman, this system where both customary and statutory laws work side by side is quite confusing because she is often unsure which system of justice she should pursue. For a woman in the rural area, her best bet is to use the customary legal system that in most cases is patently patriarchal and often not in her favour. Should she choose the state legal system, she is confronted with the challenges of physical access to a court of law, low economic power to hire a legal practitioner, high filing fees and in some instances, not too favourable decisions.

Therefore, our current systems of justice maybe described as a ‘two-edged sword’. Though there to make women’s lives comfortable, yet present daunting challenges to many women who end up not using the systems.

What is Access to Justice?
Access to Justice has many components. For our purposes it covers three components. First is access to government or civil society sponsored legal aid services. These include access to information about legal rights and responsibilities, legal counselling, legal advice, legal representation and other legal advocacy services. Second is physical access to structures/mechanisms where people can take their problems as they pursue justice. Third, it includes application of constitutional provisions on human rights and legislation in order to do justice for all manner of persons irrespective of their social, political, economic or cultural standing.

Why is Women’s Access to Justice Important?
Women as a category of the vulnerable in society will expect that they will be able to get access to justice for any conflicts that arise. To a woman, access to justice means her ‘ability to seek and obtain fair and effective responses for the resolution of conflicts, the control of abuse of power and the protection of rights through transparent, accountable and affordable mechanisms and processes that are responsive to broad social needs and sensitive to culture and the needs of disadvantaged groups.’ Women face social, economic and cultural barriers as they seek justice. Whether a woman comes from the rural or urban area determines the kind of access to justice she is able to pursue and get.

Therefore, our current systems of justice maybe described as a ‘two-edged sword’. Though there to make women’s lives comfortable, yet present daunting challenges to many women who end up not using the systems.

Linking Women’s Access to Justice to Development –The Dialogues & Commissioned Papers

Access to justice is a mechanism for ensuring the realization of constitutionally guaranteed rights for the broader goals of poverty reduction and development. The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2003); notes that access to justice is one of the fundamental principles upon which good governance rests. It provides that “…the application of these principles to reduce human deprivation, promote human rights and achieve sustainable growth requires close, determined and sustained political commitment …”

The dialogues will critically examine a number of important concerns within our legal systems. Papers commissioned will take account of the poverty, gender and power relations dimensions of the matter under consideration. These will include:

• Women seeking Legal Aid Services: Challenges, Successes and Constraints - [By Legal Aid Board]
• Gender Equality and Development: Situating Women’s Access to Courts and their Socio-Economic Development within the development paradigm - [The Judiciary]
• Do Women have Access to Justice in Ghana: Implications for Development
• [Opening Speech by Chief Justice, Supreme Court Judge or Attorney General]
• Police Service Ensuring Women Have Access to Justice – Gains and Challenges in the last 4 years [Head of DOVVSU]
• The role of the Prison Service in Ensuring Women have Access to Justice [Consultant]
• Ghana’s Vision of Growth and Prosperity: How this is influenced by Women’s Access to Justice [Dr. Nii Moi Thompson]
• NGOs providing Access to Justice for Women: Implications for Ghana’s Development Agenda [Consultant]
• Women Accessing Justice within a Plural Legal System: Successes and Challenges [Consultant]
• How the traditional system of justice affects women [Traditional Leader]
• Role of Development Partners in assisting Government to Improve its Access to Justice in Ghana (UNDP or GTZ)

Structure of the Dialogues
In order that we get broad participation of many organizations and individuals, the dialogues will be spread through the country. There will be 3 dialogues. The maiden one will be held in Accra, the second and third in Takoradi and Kumasi respectively. Not all papers will be discussed at each dialogue. Commissioned papers will be spread over all the regional dialogues. Therefore a number will be selected for Accra, Takoradi and Kumasi.

The dialogues will be structured as panel presentations. There will be two panels per dialogue.

Dialogue Output

• A synthesis of Papers and Discussions
• A Policy Brief that will be presented to Government as a contribution to discussions on how to improve women’s access to justice [National Development Planning Commission, Ministry for Women and Children’s Affairs, Chief Justice, Attorney General]

Outcomes

• Legal aid institutions address women’s access to justice with concrete recommendations for improvement
• Government is informed of challenges women face in accessing justice and recommendations for improvement

Distribution
Copies of the Synthesis will be made available to government institutions, NGOs, bilateral and multi-lateral institutions and universities.

Speakers

• Chief Justice
• Commissioner, CHRAJ
• Attorney General’s Office
• Ghana Legal Aid Board
• University of Ghana – Faculty of Law
• NGOs

Collaborating Institutions

• Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ)
• Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF Ghana)
• Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA Ghana)