The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine

We say this to comfort ourselves. We say it when a case drags on for years. We say it when a file disappears and reappears. We say it when another adjournment is announced, and everyone in the courtroom sighs. It is supposed to mean, “Be patient. Justice will come.”

But patience is easier to preach than to live.

For the woman who has been chasing a land case since her children were in primary school and is now attending court with her first grandchild, justice does not feel like a promise. It feels like a rumour. For the man who was wrongfully dismissed and has spent five years moving from office to office, courtroom to courtroom, borrowing transport money to show up, justice does not feel slow. It feels far away.

We live in a time when almost everything else has become faster. We can send money in seconds. We can trace a call in minutes. We can see what happened on the other side of the world in real time. So when someone asks, “Why is my case still not finished after eight years?” it is not a foolish question. It is a human one.

In theory, technology should have made justice quicker. In reality, in Ghana, it has mostly made waiting more organised.

Yes, forms are now digital. Yes, some records are online. But the human part of the system has not changed much. Files still sit on desks. People still have to “follow up.” And follow-up often means spending your own money, your own time, your own energy, just to remind the system that your life is still on hold.

And that is what slow justice really is. It is not just about courts and laws. It is about lives on pause.

A trader cannot expand her business because her land case is still in court. A family cannot bury a loved one properly because a chieftaincy dispute is still pending. A young man cannot plan his future because his name is tied to a case that refuses to end. Time keeps moving for the country, but it stands still for them.

What makes it more painful is that slowness is not shared equally.

When the people involved are ordinary, the case can crawl for years. When the people involved are powerful, the case can either crawl even longer or suddenly disappear altogether. So people learn, quietly, that justice does not only depend on what happened. It also depends on who you are.

That is when a proverb stops being wisdom and starts being an excuse.

We should be honest. Many times, the system is not slow because the truth is hard to find. It is slow because delay is convenient. Delay tires people out. Delay makes some give up. Delay makes others accept “settlement.” Delay allows the loudness of outrage to fade into silence.

So we keep telling ourselves that the wheels are grinding when, in fact, for many people, the wheels are simply passing over their lives.

In a country that wants to call itself modern, justice should not feel like a test of endurance. It should not require stamina, connections, or stubbornness just to reach the end of a case. It should not demand that people grow old before they are heard.

Yes, justice must be careful. But careful does not have to mean cruelly slow.

The saddest part is this: most Ghanaians no longer ask, “Will I get justice?” They ask, “How long will it take, and will I still have the strength when it finally comes?”

That is why the saying is still with us. Not because it is beautiful. But because too many people have learned to live inside the waiting.

And a country where citizens must organise their lives around waiting for justice is not suffering from slow wheels.

It is suffering from a system that has forgotten that behind every case file is a human being.