The National Legal Aid scheme in Ghana: A Problem in Search of a Solution

It is Ghana’s effort at ensuring that constitutional democracy, rule of law and access to justice extends to the poor and vulnerable that would otherwise be excluded from the formal justice delivery system. The national Legal aid scheme was established in Ghana to provide assistance for all who seek to defend or enforce the constitution in accordance with Article 294 of the 1992 Ghanaian republican constitution. This book examines the prevailing problems the national legal aid scheme in Ghana is facing in its operations. The Ghanaian national legal aid scheme in Ghana started as a court- initiated practice in the 1940s confined to giving legal assistance to person accused of murder. The Scheme was constitutionally created in 1987 to benefit all citizens without a resource to the legal system has been woefully funded by government. The first legislation to introduce a formal legal aid scheme in Ghana was the legal aid scheme Law 1987. This was subsequently repeal and re-enacted as the legal aid scheme Act 1997 (Act 542) to provide legal assistance to the poor and indigent as well as other person in the prosecution and defence of their rights under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.