PROGRAMMES> Center for Public Interest Law
Below is a list of our programmes

Mining Communities Human Rights and Legal Support Programme

Under this programme, lawyers from CEPIL are assisting mining communities in and around Tarkwa in the Wassa West District of the Western Region in their court cases with the mining companies in Tarkwa. The lawyers’ services include: free court-room representations, legal advices and human rights education. Some of the communities in these cases are; Akontanansi, Kyekyewere, Samaha and Nkwantakrom



Human Rights and Good Governance

CEPIL has under this programme represented about 30,000 squatters on the Korle-Lagoon land in their deliberations with the government. The squatters are being forcefully evicted from the Korle-Lagoon by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to pave way for works on the Korle-Lagoon Restoration Project (KLERP). Specifically CEPIL has submitted reports on the social and economic effects of the forceful eviction on the squatters to the authorities concerned. What CEPIL is seeking for is a compensation or resettlement package for the squatters.

Also on a pilot basis, CEPIL is currently educating James Fort remand prisoner’s on their rights and assisting some of them to reach their relatives who will stand as surety to enable them execute their bail bonds. Besides these the Centre has represented a few inmates in their Courts cases on pro-bono basis.



Housing Rights Programme

Under this programme, the Center gives free legal representation to informal settlers mostly within the city center who are being forcefully evicted from their settlements for one reason or the other.



Legal Aid Clinic

CEPIL also runs a legal aid clinic from 8:30 a.m to 2:00p.m each day. Through this, the Center has offered free legal consultancy to people who come in for legal advice.




Research

Under the research programme, the Center conducted a research into the impact of “IMF stabilization policy on education performance in Ghana,” (1999). Currently its conducting a research on “the rights to education and the constitutional requirement on education” and preliminary findings on the environmental effects of the mining activities of satellites Goldfields Ltd.




Workshops

CEPIL organizes workshops from time to time on good governance and human rights. Most of our workshops have been on human rights education to participants from mining communities. The aim of such workshops is to educate participants on their basic human rights and also to offer them paralegal training on the fundamentals of human rights.

A recent workshop was also organized by the CEPIL in collaboration with International Commission of Jurist (ICJ) in early October 2006, on the topic “Fair Trial and Criminal Justice. Participants were from, Ghana, Kenya, Gambia, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. Paper presentations were made on topics such as “ pre-trial process: Freedom and Security of the Person”, Legal Practitioner’s Guide: International, Regional and National Litigation Strategies”, and Comparative/Constitutional and other Legal Protections of the Right to Fair Trial and Criminal Justice Rights.