Yaw Acheampong Boafo, the former President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), has said Prof H. Kwasi Prempeh should not have been the chair of the Constitution Review Committee (CRC), set up a by President John Mahama.
The former GBA president argued that either a lawyer or a judge who has practised in Ghana should have chaired who would be in a better position to understand issues about the country’s laws and review them effectively.
Yaw Acheampong Boafo noted that even though Prof Prempeh is a professor of law and has been called to the bar in the US he has not practised in Ghana.
Speaking in an interview on Good Evening Ghana, shared on January 16, on Facebook, Yaw Boafo explained, “But one of the things that got me disappointed as a very personal thing is that our constitutional history has always taught us that our Constitutional Review Committees are always chaired by persons who have the right to practise in the Republic of Ghana… You see, you must be a lawyer who has a right of audience before the court, or you must be enrolled on the roll of lawyers in Ghana, called to the Ghana Bar.
“Either you are a judge – a superior court judge – or a lawyer. SKB Asante… I know this current committee also had lawyers. But I would rather we’ve had somebody who was called to the Ghana Bar,” he said.
Also, Yaw Boafo critiqued the Mahama government’s decision to shelve the implementation of previous Constitutional Review Committee but pushing to get the new one implemented.
He added, “What is bothering me is that it was done by Professor Albert Fiadjor, and it was shelved. Now the President, in his New Year’s message, is telling us that there is now a zeal to push it. Is it because now it’s coming from civil society?
“Because if you’re not called to the Bar in Ghana, we cannot consider you one of us properly so-called. He’s a Yale-educated, fine, brilliant individual. But for our purposes, he’s not part of those of us who have our names enrolled on the roll of lawyers,” he said.
Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama has labelled the proposal by the Constitution Review Committee as revolutionary and radical.
According to President Mahama, some of the recommendations are revolutionary and radical, but in the interest of Ghana’s democracy.
President Mahama stressed that the recommendations are necessary to strengthen governance and restore public confidence in democratic institutions, noting that several countries in the subregion are experiencing coups.
Speaking after receiving the final report from the Committee in Accra on Monday, December 22, Mahama stated, “I think that many of the recommendations you’ve made are quite revolutionary. Some are quite radical, but I think it’s in the interest of our democracy”.
“It is important for us to let our citizens know that democratic governance is still better than any other form of governance.”
He further added, “You were carefully chosen for your integrity, your credibility, and we haven’t had the experience of constitutional review committees before and the fact that at the end of it we had been unable to agree how to move the process forward”.
President Mahama further revealed plans for a nonpartisan committee for the implementation process starting early next year.
He added, “This time we said let’s choose the committee very carefully, so that it’s a committee that Ghanaians have trust in, so that when the report comes it would be nonpartisan, it would not have been influenced by any political interest, so that it would make it easier for all of us to come together and move the process forward,” he noted.
“As soon as we resume early next year, we’re moving from the constitutional review process into the implementation process, and so early next year we’ll announce an implementation committee”, he added.
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