The Constitution Review Commission has held a mini-consultation at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, to offer members of the University Community the opportunity to make contributions and recommendations into the review process of the 1992 Constitution. It was organized for junior and senior members of the University and other stakeholders, to assess the weaknesses and strengths of the existing Constitution for possible amendments.
Giving a statement of purpose, Mr. Ernest Abotsi, a Law lecturer at KNUST who doubles as a Counsel to the CRC, disclosed that it was the mandate of the Commission to organize a nationwide mini-consultations, articulate and document submissions gathered from such meetings, as part of the 1992 Constitution review exercise. "Review simply means taking a second look. Constitution review does not necessarily mean changing the Constitution", he noted.
Mr. Abotsi touched on some preliminary issues emerging from submissions made to the Commission. Among the issues that attracted attention are: the executive powers of the President in article 71 (1); constitutional injunction in article 78 (1) that majority of Ministers of State should be appointed from parliament; the absence of a ceiling on the number of judges that may be appointed to the Supreme Court, and the transitional provisions which indemnify all previous coup makers against prosecution.
The rest are: death penalty sentence; participation of traditional chiefs in active partisan politics; the calendar for holding general elections, that is, presidential and parliamentary, respectively; eligibility of presidential candidates with respect to age; decentralization of governmental powers and functions to the District Assemblies.
"The President of the Republic has political and developmental responsibility to the country; ultimately, he could be held responsible for any shortcoming", Mr. Abotsi noted. He added that, parliament is only responsible for legislation and indicated that Parliamentary candidates should not use their campaign platforms to make promises of providing infrastructural and developmental projects to the electorates. According to him, the Constitution should impoverish Members of Parliament and empower District Chief Executives to undertake developmental projects on behalf of government.
The collated submissions are expected to be forwarded to the headquarters of the Constitution Review Commission in Accra to facilitate the exercise.
