‘Publish draft bill on constitutional amendment’

Participants in a forum on the constitutional amendments have called on the Constitutional Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) to publish the draft bill for the public to make an input.

Such an input, they suggested, could be factored into the draft bill before it was presented to Parliament.

Leading the call are a retired Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Emile Short; the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Kwabena Agyei Agyapong; the Chief Executive Officer of Imani Ghana, Mr Franklin Cudjoe, and a lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana, Dr Peter Atudiwe Atupare.

According to them, the actual content of the bill had remained unknown and that did not provide an avenue for the fullest engagement of public views and interests.

In all, 41 entrenched and 56 non-entrenched provisions of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana are to be amended.

The forum was organised by the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI), together with associated civil society networks and partners, including the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Joy FM.

It was on the theme, “Taking the process of amending the 1992 Constitution forward: A legal perspective”.

The forum was addressed by two prominent constitutional lawyers, the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Professor Kofi Quashigah, and Dr Atupare.

More room for additions

Contrary to the position of the CRIC that the Constitutional Amendment Process (CAP) had been going on for the past four years and was now drawing to a close, for which reason there was no room or space for new and additional inputs, the two lawyers said there was room for more inputs.

According to them, per the proper interpretation of the amendment process, the process was not closed by the submission of the advisory opinion by the Council of State to the Speaker of Parliament but that “Parliament can proceed with the gazetting of the bill to provide the needed public notice about the bill and lay a foundation for receiving views from the public”.

“With this, enough time and consideration should be allowed for the exercise at the committee stage, since there is no time limit imposed by the Constitution in respect of the specific acts of Parliament on the amendment process,” they contended.

Constitutional amendments alone, they averred, would not change things dramatically if the human beings who operated the system did not appreciate the need for a transformation in consciousness and accepted that service to mankind was the dignifying purpose for the attainment of political, religious or social office.

Achieve best result

“That notwithstanding, when we have decided to effect our reforms through constitutional amendments, we must take the bold steps and do them to achieve the best possible result to last for a long time because constitutional amendment is not something that should be encouraged or done at random,” they maintained.

The CRC Report and the subsequent Government White Paper, together with the CRIC proposed bill, they said, had not satisfied the fears that had emerged within the nation’s body politic and that there was no need closing the debate just for the sake of attaining finality.

It was the considered opinion of the two that it was emphatically within the province of the Legislature to determine what the nature of the amendment that should be submitted to a referendum should be and that it would run against the spirit of the Constitution to suggest that the Executive had the final say on what form the amendments should take.

Not a light exercise

The amendment exercise, they said, must not be taken lightly as a mere response to only transitory urges of politicians and that it was a national, Republican, as well as constitutional democratic building process which required a wider focus and reflection.

The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwettey, said it must not be taken for granted that the country was going to have a very harmonious process of constitutional amendment.

He, therefore, advocated consensus-building, especially among the two major political parties, adding that details of the bill must be put in the public domain in order to get the public actively involved.

The Chairman of the CFI, Major General Nii Carl Coleman (retd), said the inauguration of the national interest dialogue on multi-party governance reforms and the constitutional amendment process had attracted a positive feedback from the public, especially considering the fact that many considered the process to be less transparent, exclusionary and inadequately publicised.

Writer’s email: victor.kwawukume@graphic.com.gh