Court Bailiffs' Job Privatised

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday, 03 November 2006
COURT bailiffs will no longer be employed by the Judicial Service following the privatisation of their main duty to seven private companies.

However, those who are already in the service will not be dismissed. They will either carry out other bailiff duties or re-assigned to carry out other duties for the service.

Chief Justice George Kingsley Acquah announced this at a ceremony on Tuesday to present licences to the private companies.

"It is not the entire bailiff duties that have been privatised. What has been privatised is the serving of court processes and some of the court bailiffs will continue to work, while others found to be better suited for other units of the service will be re-assigned," he explained.

He said the companies’ involvement in serving court processes on litigants is under the private servers’ scheme of the Judicial Service, and added that the privatisation of the process formed part of the service’s reform and modernisation programme to improve justice delivery in the country.

"This aspect of the reform programme received legal backing with the coming into force of the new High Court Civil Procedure Rules C.I.47 of 2004, which empowers the court to appoint private process servers," he stated.

Justice Acquah said the scheme, started on a pilot basis last year in Accra, yielded satisfactory results saying, "Out of 21,150 processes received, 18,751 were served, representing 89 per cent. The 11 per cent which was not served was a result of insufficient addresses."

He noted that the activities of some court bailiffs over the years had created a lot of problems as far as the administration of justice was concerned and that "their activities and ineffectiveness contributed to the numerous adjournments of cases."

The seven licensed companies include: Johnson Complex Company Limited, which will handle the Fast Track High Courts; A-Men International Limited will handle the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and all the unautomated high courts in Accra.

City Toll Limited will be in charge of the commercial courts and the Ho High Court while Vaskab Company Limited will serve the Tema high courts.