By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Ashanti Regional branch of the Ghana Union of Traders Associations, GUTA, has embraced Alternative Disputes Resolution, ADR as a laudable mechanism for business and trade related dispute settlement by stakeholders.
According to the branch executives, ADR offers a more friendly, cost and time effective option for any trader, businessman or client dissatisfied with the other players than using the traditional court litigation system in seeking redress of their concerns.
This was the remark of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of GUTA, Anthony Oppong emphasizing the impression of some of the regional executives after an interaction session with some senior staff members of the Judiciary in Kumasi.
The interaction with executives of the Ashanti regional branch of GUTA was part of a week-long outreach by a team of the Judiciary made up of two Justices of the Superior Court of adjudicature and the Alternative Disputes Resolution department.
The team from Monday, 4th March met different groups in the business, trade and commerce industry including ‘Kuapa Kookoo’ Farmers Union, leadership of the Race Course Traders, Ghana Association of Garages, staff of the ARB Apex Bank and some private financial and banking institutions in the region to educate them on the availability of a court connected ADR mechanism, the law backing it, who and which cases qualify for it, how to access it for speedy settlement of especially civil cases as well as why people, particularly the traders and business people must opt for the mechanism instead of the expensive and time consuming traditional court litigation.
The interaction between the team from the judiciary and regional executives of GUTA was to enable the Justices to encourage the participants, who also represent different trade associations to appreciate that, using ADR to resolve their business disputes either among themselves or clients or customers is most referable in maintaining their business relationship after settlement without compromising their business interest.
The Ashanti Regional Chairman of GUTA, Anthony Oppong, commended the team for the patience and professionalism exhibited during the interaction leading to a greater satisfaction among the participants about the need to opt for ADR in protecting their trade and business.
“Dealing with government officials has been often. We’ve been doing it throughout the year and over the years. But with the ADR or Judicial Service, this is our first time of meeting them and we consider it as a very important occasion because they’ve given us insight into our trade disputes resolution and issues and we think it’s a great opportunity.”
“It’s been so helpful and insightful because most of the issues we can solve among ourselves we’ve been resorting to the Police and you know when you go to the Police, ‘oh go come tomorrow’ and the monies we paid there. But the insight given to us, now we’ve come to the realization that it’s not all issue that we’ve to send to the Police and we’ve been taught today that, the Police are not debt collectors. So financial issues, we need to resort to ADR than going to the Police. I think it’s a big opportunity for us that, going forward, we’ll know to handle our cases especially disputes of trade among ourselves”, the Regional Chairman asserted.
The Justice of the Court of Appeal in charge of ADR, Justice Mrs. Angelina Mensah Homea, disclosed that, if Ghanaians would embrace ADR in resolving their matters, the caseload at the courts would be substantially reduced to create much room for the speedy adjudication of other cases not permitted under the ADR Act.
“We want court users to embrace ADR. It has been there since the year 2005 and over 38, 000 cases have been resolved through ADR. It’s our hope that, because of the massive sensitization that we’ve done this week, when we come back on the 17th of this month to launch the ADR Week, we’ll have more ADR cases to settle”, she hoped.
Justice Mrs. Mensah Homea expressed satisfaction with the interest shown by members of the groups the team interacted with during the week-long awareness outreach.
A Justice of the High Court of General Jurisdiction in Kumasi, Justice Mrs. Dorinda Smith-Arthur, noted that apart from stated crimes such as rape, defilement, armed robbery and high treason, almost all civil cases are permitted to be settled through mediation or arbitration under ADR with no additional cost apart from the filing of court processes.
She emphasized that ADR saves time and relationships since it is a win-win disputes settlement approach.
