Public Access to Primary Legal Information in Ghana: Opportunities and Challenges

Information to a large extent can have economic, political and social impact on the lives of people globally. Information enables one to adjust in the global system through the effective utilization of local resources. It has become common that the fundamental human right to access to information is mostly interpreted in the legal frameworks of countries that support freedom of information. Citizens need to have access to information that is produced and held by governmental agencies. The objective of this article was to establish and assess Ghana’s legislation on making legal information readily accessible to the general public especially at the national level. Access to public primary legal information is important. In Ghana, certain provisions in the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana have inscribed the human rights and freedoms that the citizenry can enjoy and this is clearly stated under Chapter 5 of the Constitution. Provision has also been made for the Right to Information as well as the academic freedom elements in Ghana’s 1992 Constitution under article 21(1)(f). Some channels that enable the citizenry to have access to legal information include platforms such as E-Governance, Research4Life Partnership Program through GOALI, other free legal websites, digital repositories, the advent of Open Source Software and the role of law libraries . However, access to primary legal information in Ghana is beset with some challenges which include intellectual property, lack of funding, restrictive Ghanaian laws and inadequate research skills. Some recommendations have been made based on the challenges identified