Special courts for cybercrime, cross-border crimes, others to be rolled out Feb. 9-Chief Justice

The Chief Justice, His Lordship Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, has announced that special courts are expected to begin sitting from Monday, with a broader plan to introduce a shift arrangement where some judges sit in the morning and others in the afternoon.

The special courts, he said, will focus on cases including cybercrime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other cross-border offences, supported by tighter coordination among relevant institutions.

Speaking during separate working visits to the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ghana Prisons Service, the Chief Justice said the scale of foreign participation in some mining communities was difficult to ignore.

He said there are areas where Chinese nationals are not only present at mining sites but are also involved in supplying equipment and purchasing gold, insisting that such levels of activity suggest the state should be able to trace how they entered and under what authorisation.

The Chief Justice noted that lawful entry typically requires documentation such as work permits, adding that unless people are being smuggled in, the country’s systems should already have records on them.

At the Immigration Service, the Comptroller-General, Samuel Basintale Amadu, urged the judiciary to support a review of penalties for illegal mining, arguing that current fines imposed by courts are often too low to deter offenders.

The Chief Justice also visited the Ghana Prisons Service headquarters, where discussions focused on how stronger collaboration between the courts and prisons could help address overcrowding in custodial facilities.