The Ghanaian Constitutional Review

I have been asked to work on HRAC’s review of the Ghanaian Constitutional Review. Here’s a bit of background:

In October 2010 the late President, John Evans Atta Mills, inaugurated a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC). The purpose of the CRC was to solicit views from the public on the review of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

The CRC’s final report was submitted to the President in December 2011. The Government issued a White Paper in June 2012 accepting most, and rejecting a few, of the CRC’s recommendations for constitutional amendment. A Constitutional Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) was then formed in order to take preparatory steps, including drafting the appropriate bills, necessary to implement the recommendations of the CRC.

In March 2014 the Implementation Committee submitted a draft Bill for amendment of the Constitution to the Attorney-General.

The Bill proposes changes to 34 entrenched provisions of the Constitution, as well as inserting 7 new entrenched provisions.  Ghanaians will vote on the proposed changes to the 1992 Constitution later this year – the first time ever the Constitution will be amended via referendum. In order for amendments to be made, at least 40 per cent of the persons entitled to vote must participate, and at least 75 per cent of the people who vote must cast their votes in favour of passing the Bill.

In recent weeks civil society organisations have expressed concerns with the new Bill. One of the concerns that has been voiced is that the executive has had too much influence on the content of the Bill, through the CRC and the CRIC. There is concern that Parliament has not had enough of a role and that the referendum process is mere “rubber stamping” exercise, especially as several disparate proposed amendments will be voted on as a single issue. Civil society has also urged the need for much more public education on the content of the Bill prior to referendum. Because of these concerns many civil society organisations are now lobbying the Government urging a slow-down of Constitutional Reform.

I have been asked to consider the content of both the CRC review (which is huge – about the size of the Yellow Pages), the Government White Paper and the draft Bill itself. HRAC wants me to consider both the positive points and the shortcomings of the draft Bill in terms of its compatibility with Ghana’s international treaty obligations and public international law, for use as an advocacy tool. For example, the draft Bill takes a positive step forward in abolishing the death penalty (Ghana has been abolitionist in practice, if not in law since 1993). However, it replaces the death penalty with life without parole. This in itself may be deemed problematic in terms of international human rights law.

This is a big project and may take me until the end of my time in Accra to complete. Down to work…as soon as the power comes back on.