Supreme Court nominee, Justice Janapare Adzua Bartels-Kodwo, has called for urgent and comprehensive judicial reforms backed by substantial infrastructure investment to enhance efficiency and accessibility across Ghana’s justice system.

Appearing before Parliament’s Appointments Committee, Justice Bartels-Kodwo, who has served nearly three decades on the bench, reflected on how significantly the judiciary has evolved and stressed the need for reforms that match the pace of societal change.

“The judicial service that I entered 28 years ago is not the same today. Times have changed,” she noted. “To have great reforms, we need to put in the infrastructure.”

She expressed concern about persistent delays in the justice delivery process and pointed out that while digital tools such as the e-justice system offer hope, their effectiveness is limited by infrastructural gaps, especially outside Accra.

“E-justice does not operate on steam, for lack of a better word. We need to put it in the network,” she said.

Justice Bartels-Kodwo insisted that reforms must not be concentrated in the capital alone.

“Judicial reforms should be across the country… If we talk about cases moving fast, efficiency, speedy trials, it shouldn’t happen only in the Law Court Complex. It must happen across the nation.”

She urged the government and key stakeholders to prioritise financial commitments that would make such reforms a reality.

“Judicial reforms do not come cheap. We need a massive injection of funds,” she stressed.

Her comments reinforce a growing call within legal circles for a more equitable and modernised justice delivery system nationwide.