Judges, lawyers schooled on ECOWAS Community Court
A three-day seminar for Ghanaian judges and lawyers on the jurisdiction, procedure and jurisprudence of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice opened in Accra yesterday.
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The seminar, which is part of the outreach agenda of the ECOWAS Court, is also intended to enhance cooperation between the sub-regional court and the judiciary of Ghana.
Community Court of Justice
The Community Court of Justice was created pursuant to the provisions of articles 6 and 15 of the Revised Treaty of ECOWAS.
The court is composed of seven independent judges, who are persons of high moral character, appointed by the Authority of Heads of State and Government from nationals of member states for a four-year term of office upon recommendation of the Community Judicial Council.
The court is mandated to ensure the observance of law, the principles of equity and the interpretation and application of the provisions of subsidiary legal instruments adopted by the community.
At the opening session of the seminar, the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, Mr Justice Micah Wilkins Wright, said the court, as part of its effort to ensure that justice was dispensed at the doorstep of member states of the sub-regional body, had resolved to move from its comfort zone and travel to other parts of the sub-region to solve cases of human rights abuse and other issues of its member countries.
Mr Justice Wright, who spoke on the theme: “The Jurisdiction of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice”, said the outreach programme of the ECOWAS Community Court was part of its four-year strategic plan to make its services more accessible to people.
Violation of rights
He said the court would handle issues of violation of human rights by ensuring that member states did not abuse the rights of their citizens.
“When a government of a member state fails to investigate and punish an actor and the case gets to us, the government will be dealt with,” he said.
He said it was in connection with checking human rights violations that ECOWAS was organising the seminars to update the knowledge of participants on the roles and processes of the sub-regional court.
In a goodwill message, the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, assured the court of the maximum cooperation of the judiciary in Ghana towards the effort to strengthen the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice to achieve the objectives outlined by ECOWAS.
Commitment
She urged the participants to really absorb all that the seminar had to offer, so that they could apply them when the need arose.
A senior lecturer of the Ghana School of Law, Mr Moses Foh-Amoaning, stated that the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology had established a School of Law to train practitioners as part of the national effort to expand legal education and for the beneficiaries to contribute more to national economic development.