Distinguished Academic Lecture
University of Education, Winneba; Jophus Anamoah Mensah Conference Hall
Delivered on: Friday, 13 March 2026
Delivered by: His Lordship Justice Kweku Tawiah Ackaah-Boafo, JSC
on behalf of His Lordship the Hon. Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie
SALUTATIONS AND OPENING REMARKS
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba; Pro Vice-Chancellor; Registrar; Members of the University Council; the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science Education; Dr. Maxwell Acheampong, Lecturer and Course Coordinator at the Centre for African Studies; Distinguished Members of Faculty; students and invited guests.
I bring you warm greetings from the Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana, as by law established, His Lordship Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie. His Lordship regrets that pressing engagements of the Judicial Service have prevented him from being present in person on this occasion. He has, however, requested that I deliver this lecture on his behalf, and I do so with deep appreciation for the honour which this University has extended to the Judiciary. Although I deliver this lecture in representation of the Chief Justice, I wish to make it clear that I bear sole responsibility for the contents of the paper I am about to present.
It is, I should say, a particular pleasure for me to be in Winneba. I spent part of my formative years at Winneba Secondary School, and returning to this community in the capacity of a Justice of the Supreme Court, bearing the message of the Chief Justice, serves as a reminder of how unpredictable —and at times generous — the course of life can be. I mention this only because one of the themes that runs through this lecture concerns the relationship between where we come from and the obligations we owe to the communities that helped shape us.
The theme proposed for this lecture is both ambitious and timely. “Justice Beyond the Courtroom” invites us to reflect on what occurs when the values that animate the work of judges, lawyers, and courts extend outward into the broader life of the nation. It calls upon us to consider whether justice belongs solely to the courtroom, or whether it is instead a quality of civic life that must be cultivated within families, schools, communities, and the habits of democratic citizenship.
My answer, which I will develop over the next several minutes, is that the courtroom is an essential institution of a democratic society; however, it is only one among many sites where justice is made real. The deeper work of building a peaceful and stable democracy takes place in the spaces between formal institutions — in the quality of our public dialogue, in the values we instil in our children, and in the willingness of citizens to treat one another with the fairness and dignity that the law demands.
THE COURTROOM AS A STARTING POINT
Article 125(1) of the 1992 Constitution declares that justice emanates from the people and shall be administered in the name of the Republic by the Judiciary[1]. This is a foundational statement. It tells us that the Judiciary does not own justice; rather, it administers justice on behalf of the people, drawing its authority from the sovereign will of the nation as expressed through the Constitution. The courtroom, in other words, is an instrument of the people’s aspiration for a just society. It is where that aspiration takes its most formal and binding shape.
This instrument is working. Across the country, Ghanaians are asserting their rights in growing numbers. High Courts, which were once confined to regional capitals, now sit in districts across all sixteen regions. The demand for justice is expanding, and the Judiciary has responded by growing with it[2]. The Court-Connected Alternative Dispute Resolution Programme, which I will discuss in greater detail shortly, now operates through 138 courts nationwide and has facilitated the settlement of over 37,000 cases in the past two decades[3].
These are encouraging figures. They reflect a society that is becoming more legally conscious, more willing to seek the formal resolution of its disputes, and more confident in the institutions that the Constitution has established. But they also raise a question that the Judiciary alone cannot answer: if the courts are seeing more of society’s conflicts, is society also building the upstream capacity to prevent those conflicts from arising, or to resolve them before they reach the courtroom? The courtroom is where disputes end. The question is whether we are paying sufficient attention to where disputes begin.
This is what I mean by “justice beyond the courtroom.” The phrase does not diminish the importance of the courts. On the contrary, it recognises that the courts function best in a society that has invested in the broader conditions of justice: dialogue, education, values, and the habits of peaceful coexistence. A society that depends entirely on its courts for justice is a society that has failed to cultivate these deeper resources, and no court system, however well resourced, can bear that burden alone.
LAW AND DIALOGUE AS COMPLEMENTARY FORCES
The relationship between law and dialogue lies at the heart of any functioning democracy. Law provides the framework, the rules, and the final word when parties cannot reach an agreement. Dialogue provides the space for parties to explore their interests, hear one another, and arrive at outcomes that formal adjudication often cannot deliver. These two modes of resolving disagreement are complementary, and a mature democracy draws upon both.
A. Dialogue in the Constitutional Architecture
Our own constitutional history illustrates this point. The 1992 Constitution was itself born out of dialogue. The 258-member Consultative Assembly, drawing representatives from geographic districts and established civic organisations, deliberated on the draft proposals of the Committee of Experts and produced the document that Ghanaians approved in the referendum of 28 April 1992.[4] The process was imperfect, as those who remember the Ghana Bar Association’s boycott will recall. But its fundamental character was deliberative. The Constitution that governs us today emerged from a structured conversation among Ghanaians about the kind of society they wished to build.
The Constitution itself also embeds dialogue into the architecture of governance. The Council of State exists as a presidential advisory body, providing counsel that draws on wisdom and experience from across the nation’s regions and professional communities. The National House of Chiefs preserves the consultative traditions of our chieftaincy institutions within the formal constitutional order[5]. The consultative requirements that attend presidential appointments to the superior courts, including the appointment of the Chief Justice, ensure that no single authority acts without the benefit of broader deliberation.
These are structural commitments to the principle that governance is a conversation, and that the quality of that conversation matters.
B. Alternative Dispute Resolution and the Judiciary
Within the Judiciary itself, we have recognised that the adversarial system of adjudication, for all its strengths, is not always the best means of delivering justice. Litigation can be slow, costly, and difficult to navigate, particularly for citizens from low-income backgrounds. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of 2010 was enacted precisely to address these limitations, providing a comprehensive legal framework for arbitration, mediation, and customary arbitration.[6]
The Court-Connected Alternative Dispute Resolution Programme, grounded in Sections 72 and 73 of the Courts Act, 1993, has become what I have elsewhere described as a cornerstone of justice delivery.[7] Through the CCADR, judges refer appropriate cases to trained mediators who work with the parties to reach consensual settlements. These settlements, once formalised as consent judgments, carry the authority of the court and are not subject to appeal, bringing genuine finality to disputes.
The figures speak for themselves. Over 37,000 cases have been settled through CCADR in the past two decades, and many of these cases do not return to court for further disputes or appeals. The High Court (Civil Procedure) (Amendment) Rules of 2020 have further integrated mediation referral procedures into the formal court process, making ADR an organic part of the litigation pathway rather than an afterthought.[8] Plans are underway to connect an additional 100 courts to the ADR programme, extending its reach into communities that have until now lacked access to these mechanisms.
I emphasise the CCADR not merely because it is an institutional achievement — although it is — but because it embodies a principle that extends far beyond the courtroom. That principle is this: the most durable resolutions to human conflict are those that the parties themselves have had a hand in shaping. When people participate in the resolution of their own disputes — when they are heard and when they hear the other side — the outcome carries a legitimacy that no externally imposed judgment can fully replicate. This is the logic of dialogue, and it operates in every sphere of life, from the family to the community to the corridors of national governance
C. Learning from Our Own Traditions
It is worth noting that the principle of dialogue in dispute resolution is not novel in Ghana. Long before the enactment of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010 (Act 798), many Ghanaian communities —including my beloved town of Insu Siding in the Western Region and my imagined town of Otwebonpitsir — practised forms of consensual dispute resolution rooted in the understanding that the preservation of relationships is often of greater value than adversarial victory. The customary arbitration provisions in the ADR Act are a statutory acknowledgement of what Ghanaian communities have known for generations: that a dispute well resolved strengthens the community, while a dispute that produces only a winner and a loser often leaves both parties diminished.[9]
I do not say this to romanticise customary processes. Some customary practices have perpetuated inequalities, and the law rightly intervenes where fundamental rights are at stake. But the normative insight at the core of our indigenous dispute resolution traditions — the idea that justice and reconciliation are not opposing goals but complementary ones —is an insight that modern legal systems around the world are rediscovering. We should not be in the position of importing what we already possess.
JUDICIAL VALUES AS CIVIC VALUES
Let me turn now to a different dimension of justice beyond the courtroom. As a judge, I am bound by certain professional obligations: to be impartial, to hear both sides before reaching a decision, to give reasons for my judgments, to treat every person who comes before me with dignity regardless of their station, and to be faithful to the Constitution and the law rather than to personal preference or popular opinion. These obligations are the foundation of judicial ethics, and they are non-negotiable.
But I have come to believe, over the course of a career that has taken me from practice in courtrooms in Ghana, then, Toronto, Canada, to serving on the Bench from the High Court in Accra, to the Court of Appeal and now the Supreme Court, that these judicial obligations are expressions of something larger. They are, at their core, civic values. They describe how any citizen in a democracy should approach disagreement, how any leader should exercise authority, and how any institution should treat the people it serves.
Consider impartiality. A judge must set aside personal sympathies and decide each case on its merits. But is this not also what we ask of a parent mediating a dispute between siblings, of a chief adjudicating a land matter or a family dispute, of a teacher grading an examination, or of a public servant allocating resources? The habit of setting aside one’s own interests to do what is fair is a democratic habit, and it is one that every institution, from the family to the state, depends on.
Consider the duty to hear both sides. The principle of audi alteram partem, that no person should be condemned unheard, is a cornerstone of the common law. In the courtroom, it is a procedural requirement. In civic life, it is a discipline. It means resisting the temptation to form conclusions before hearing the full picture. It means creating space for voices that are marginalised or unpopular. It means accepting that one’s own perspective, however strongly held, is incomplete without the perspective of those who disagree.
Consider the duty to give reasons. A court that decides without explanation forfeits its legitimacy. But so does a government that acts without transparency, an employer who terminates without cause, or a parent who disciplines without explanation. The willingness to account for one’s decisions, to open them to scrutiny and critique, is the hallmark of authority exercised responsibly.
I raise these examples not because I think everyone should behave like a judge. I raise them because the values that sustain the courtroom are the same values that sustain a democracy. Article 35(1) of the Constitution declares that Ghana shall be a democratic state dedicated to the realisation of freedom and justice[10]. Freedom and justice are not achieved by courts alone. They are achieved when citizens internalise the principles that animate the legal system and practise them in their daily interactions. When we are impartial in our dealings, when we listen before judging, and when we give reasons for our decisions, we are doing the work of justice in every space we occupy.
This has particular resonance in our present moment. Public discourse in Ghana, as in many democracies around the world, is under strain. The rise of social media has expanded the platforms for expression, but it has also created an environment in which accusation often substitutes for argument, in which rumour travels faster than fact, and in which the habit of listening before responding is in danger of being lost. The Judiciary is not immune to this environment. Judges and judicial decisions are scrutinised, criticised, and sometimes misrepresented in ways that test institutional patience. But the response of the Judiciary must always be the same: to act with integrity, to decide on the merits, and to let the quality of our work speak for itself.[11]
I would encourage the young people in this hall to cultivate these same habits. You are entering a world that will test your capacity for fairness, for patience, for reasoned engagement with those who see things differently. The values of the courtroom, impartiality, fair hearing, reasoned decision-making, and respect for the dignity of all persons, are values that will serve you well in every profession, every relationship, and every act of citizenship.
JUSTICE BEGINS AT HOME: FAMILY, COMMUNITY, AND VALUES FORMATION
I am told that among the students gathered here today are those studying Effective Parenting alongside those studying Contemporary Issues in Ghanaian Law and Negotiation and Dispute Resolution. This is a remarkable combination, and I do not think it is accidental. The University, in bringing together these disciplines, recognises what any thoughtful observer of society already knows: that the quality of justice in a nation is inseparable from the quality of its families and communities.
The courtroom, as I have said, deals with the consequences of conflicts that have already escalated. It deals with marriages that have broken down, with contracts that have been breached, with trust that has been violated, and with harm that has been inflicted. By the time a matter reaches the court, the damage is done. The court’s task is to repair what can be repaired, to allocate responsibility, and to enforce the rights that the law protects. But the question that should concern all of us is what happens before the court becomes necessary.
The family is the first institution of justice. It is where a child first encounters the ideas and ideals of fairness, consequence, responsibility, and forgiveness. When a parent resolves a dispute between children by hearing both sides, that parent is teaching the principle of fair hearing. When a parent enforces consequences consistently and without favouritism, that parent is teaching the rule of law. When a parent forgives a child who has acknowledged wrongdoing, that parent is teaching the possibility of restoration, the idea that relationships can survive breach if the parties are willing to engage honestly with what went wrong.
These early lessons shape the citizens that our democracy will inherit. A child who grows up in a home where disputes are resolved through force learns that power determines outcomes. A child who grows up in a home where grievances are ignored learns that justice is unavailable. A child who grows up in a home where disagreements are resolved through conversation, accountability, and mutual respect learns that dialogue is both possible and effective. The patterns established in the family ripple outward through communities and institutions, and they ultimately determine whether a society’s commitment to justice is genuine or merely aspirational.
Article 41 of the Constitution outlines the duties of every citizen, including the duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, to respect the rights and freedoms of others, and to cooperate with lawful agencies in the maintenance of law and order.[12] These duties are not self-executing. They are learned. And the primary sites of learning are the family, the school, and the community. If we want citizens who understand that their rights exist alongside obligations to others, we must invest in the institutions that teach these lessons.
This is where education assumes its critical role. The University of Education, Winneba, occupies a unique position in Ghana’s educational landscape. You are training the teachers who will shape the next generation of Ghanaian citizens. The values that you carry into your classrooms, the habits of fairness, critical thinking, respectful disagreement, and accountability that you model for your students, will travel through those students into families, workplaces, and communities across the country. The Judicial Service has recognised this connection through its Justice Clubs initiative, which extends civic and legal literacy programmes to schools in several regions.[13] We believe that when young people understand the law and the institutions that protect their rights, they become more effective participants in democracy, not only as potential litigants but as citizens who contribute to the conditions that reduce the need for litigation.
TOWARD A PEACEFUL AND STABLE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
I have traced a path from the courtroom outward: through dialogue, through civic values, and through the family and the school. Let me now draw these threads together.
A peaceful and stable democratic society is not built by any single institution. It is built by an ecosystem of institutions, practices, and values that reinforce one another. The Constitution provides the framework. The courts enforce the framework. But the framework holds only because citizens and communities invest in the conditions that make it work: dialogue over confrontation, accountability over impunity, inclusion over marginalisation, and the education of each generation in the principles that sustain the whole.
Ghana’s democratic journey since 1993 has been sustained by this ecosystem. We have held eight successive general elections under the Fourth Republic, with four peaceful transfers of power between opposing political parties.[14] That record is exceptional on any continent, and it belongs not only to the politicians who contested those elections or the institutions that administered them, but to the millions of Ghanaians who chose, each time, to express their political will through the ballot rather than through violence.
But records are not guarantees. The moments when our democracy has been tested, election disputes, institutional tensions, public crises of confidence in the courts and other state institutions, have been navigated because enough citizens and enough institutions remained committed to the constitutional order. That commitment is not only renewable, but it is also perishable. It must be actively cultivated in each generation.
The Constitution itself recognises this. Article 33(5) preserves the jurisdiction of the courts to enforce fundamental human rights even where no specific legislation has been enacted to give effect to international human rights instruments.[15] This is a generous provision, but it depends on a citizenry that knows its rights and is willing to claim them. A right that is not known cannot be exercised. A court that is not approached cannot act. The work of civic education, of legal literacy, of building public confidence in institutions, is the work that makes the Constitution’s promises real.
And so I return to the central theme of this lecture. Justice beyond the courtroom is not a mere slogan; it is a description of what a functioning democracy demands. It demands courts that are independent, competent, and accessible. It demands mechanisms of dialogue, including alternative dispute resolution, that provide citizens with meaningful alternatives to litigation. It demands public institutions that embody the values of fairness and accountability. It demands families that nurture children in environments where justice is practised, and schools that equip students with the knowledge and habits necessary for democratic citizenship. Above all, it demands a culture of constitutionalism: a shared understanding that the rules of the game apply to all, and that the strength of our democracy rests in our collective willingness to abide by those rules, even when doing so is inconvenient.
A CHARGE TO THE NEXT GENERATION
Let me close with a word addressed directly to the students in this hall.
You are inheriting a democracy that is still young and still under construction. The Constitution is just over thirty years old. The institutions it established are still maturing, and the culture of constitutionalism that sustains them is still being formed. This is not a cause for despair; it is an invitation.
The generation that drafted the 1992 Constitution made a wager. They wagered that Ghanaians, given the chance to govern themselves under a framework of shared rules and mutual obligations, would choose dialogue over dictatorship, law over force, and the discipline of democratic participation over the false comfort of authoritarian certainty. For over three decades, that wager has been vindicated — but it has been vindicated because each generation has renewed the commitment.
Your generation faces challenges that were not fully anticipated in 1992. The digital revolution has transformed how information moves, how opinions are formed, and how conflicts escalate. Economic pressures and the inequalities they produce test the patience of citizens who are told that democracy will deliver prosperity but who experience that promise unevenly. The relationship between the state and the citizen is being renegotiated in real time, and the outcome is not predetermined.
What I ask of you is what the Constitution asks of every citizen: to uphold and defend the democratic order, to respect the rights and dignity of others, and to contribute to the common good through your work, your families, and your civic participation. Whether you become teachers, lawyers, negotiators, parents, or all of these at once, you will carry justice beyond the courtroom — every time you resolve a dispute fairly, every time you listen before you judge, every time you hold yourself and your community to account, and every time you choose dialogue over dominance.
The Judiciary will continue to do its part. We will deliver judgments that are fair, timely, and grounded in law. We will expand access to justice through ADR and the use of technology. We will protect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and hold all persons —including ourselves — to the standards demanded by the rule of law. But the peace and stability of this republic depend on more than what happens in the courtroom. They depend on you.
I thank the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Acheampong, the Faculty of Social Science Education, and the entire University community for this opportunity. On behalf of the Chief Justice, I extend his warmest regards to the students and faculty of the University of Education, Winneba, and his hope that the conversation we have begun here today will continue in your classrooms, your communities, your workplaces and your lives.
Thank you, and may God bless our homeland Ghana.
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[1]Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, Article 125(1): “Justice emanates from the people and shall be administered in the name of the Republic by the Judiciary which shall be independent and subject only to this Constitution.”
[2]Justice Ackaah-Boafo, during his vetting before the Appointments Committee of Parliament in June 2025, noted that as of May 2025 there were approximately 11,000 lawyers in Ghana, with about 8,000 practising, and that in some regions the ratio stood at roughly one lawyer for every 2,000 people.
[3]As of 2025, there are approximately 138 courts connected to the Court-Connected Alternative Dispute Resolution (CCADR) Programme, comprising 35 Circuit Courts and 103 District Courts, with over 37,000 cases settled through CCADR over the past two decades. See Judicial Service of Ghana, ADR Week Programme Reports, 2024–2025.
[4]See the 258-member Consultative Assembly process of 1991–1992, which drew representatives from geographic districts and established civic and professional organisations to deliberate on the draft constitution. The draft was approved by referendum on 28 April 1992 with 92 per cent support. See Constitutional History of Ghana, ConstitutionNet.
[5]Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, Chapter Eight, establishing the Council of State as a presidential advisory body, and Chapter Twenty-Two, establishing the National House of Chiefs.
[6]Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010 (Act 798), enacted on 31 May 2010, providing for the settlement of disputes through arbitration, mediation, and customary arbitration, and establishing the Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre.
[7]Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459), Sections 72 and 73, which provide the legal foundation for courts to refer appropriate matters to alternative dispute resolution.
[8]The High Court (Civil Procedure) (Amendment) Rules, 2020 (C.I. 133) and the District Court (Amendment) Rules, 2020 (C.I. 134), which integrate mediation referral procedures into the formal court process.
[9]See A.K. Brako-Powers, “An Evaluation of Ghana’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 2010 (Act 798) Thirteen Years On” (2023), noting that despite the continued predominance of litigation, ADR mechanisms have found growing favour among Ghanaians.
[10]Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, Article 35(1): “Ghana shall be a democratic state dedicated to the realisation of freedom and justice; and accordingly, sovereignty resides in the people of Ghana from whom Government derives all its powers and authority through this Constitution.”
[11]Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, at the swearing-in of 52 Circuit Court Judges in January 2026, emphasised that public confidence in the judiciary is “fragile, built over time but easily eroded,” and urged judges to embrace digital reforms and artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency, transparency, and public trust.
[12]Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, Article 41, which outlines the duties of every citizen, including the duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, to respect the rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests of others, and to cooperate with lawful agencies in the maintenance of law and order.
[13]See the Judicial Service of Ghana’s Justice Clubs initiative, which extends civic and legal literacy programmes to schools across the country, including recent expansions in the Central and Western Regions.
[14]Ghana has conducted eight successive general elections under the Fourth Republic (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024), with four peaceful transfers of power between political parties (2000, 2008, 2016, 2024).
[15]Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, Article 33(5), preserving the jurisdiction of the courts to enforce fundamental human rights even where no specific legislation has been enacted to give effect to relevant international human rights instruments.