Austerity in Civil Procedure - A Critical Assessment of the Impact of the Global Economic Downturn on Civil Justice in Ghana

Abstract

The demand for and availability of civil justice procedures for small claims or simple cases can neither be disentangled nor extricated from the health of the economic climate of the relevant country concerned. In this paper, it is argued that despite not a being developed country, Ghana was not completed insulated from the hardships or austerity that was triggered by the economic meltdown. The inevitability of behavioral changes on the part of Government of Ghana as law maker and provider of civil justice procedures of the one hand and small claims litigants as users of the civil procedure is also explored in the paper. After properly situating the exploration in the relevant economic context, the paper makes recommendations regarding how to minimise the impact of the austerity measures on small claims litigants.