By: Elizabeth Bramer and Team
The welfare principle in Ghanaian courts is a legal mandate that a child’s best interests must be the primary consideration in any matter involving them. This semester, our team evaluated the effectiveness of this principle in answering the question of whether this principle is simply rhetoric or the reality in Ghana.
While this principle is firmly embedded in Ghana’s Constitution, the Children’s Act, and international commitments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, research reveals a significant gap between law and practice.
In theory, Ghana’s legal framework is robust. It requires courts to prioritize children’s dignity, protection, and participation, especially in criminal cases involving child victims. Statutes provide for privacy protections and child-centered procedural accommodations, while case law emphasizes that welfare extends beyond physical needs to include the emotional, spiritual, moral, and social needs of the child.
In practice, however, the principle is inconsistently applied. Child victims—particularly in cases of sexual violence—often experience the justice system as adversarial and retraumatizing. Many victims are required to testify in open court, face cross-examination (sometimes by the accused), and repeatedly recount traumatic events. Protective measures like closed hearings or anonymity are used irregularly and largely at judicial discretion.
This disconnect highlights a central finding of our team’s research: the welfare principle in Ghana is often more rhetorical than operational. Structural challenges—such as evidentiary hurdles, lack of specialized procedures, and limited training for legal professionals—undermine its effectiveness and lead to secondary victimization. Additionally, tensions between open-court norms and child privacy, as well as gaps in legal definitions and protections, further weaken implementation.
Our research pointed us towards areas for practical reform: standardizing child-friendly procedures, limiting cross-examination, improving prosecutorial tools, and expanding training in victim-centered justice. Ultimately, the issue is not whether Ghana has a strong legal framework—statute and judicial precedent have established that it does—but whether its courts consistently translate that framework into meaningful protection for child victims.
This post was written by a student at Regent University School of Law. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of Regent University, Regent Law School, or the Center for Global Justice.