The 1992 Constitution Of Ghana, An Institution Or A Confusion, A Monument Or Mere Document

I am writing this not as John Dewey, John Austin, Hans Kelsen, Jean Jacques Rousseau or Johan Van Goethe. Neither am I writing as the prolific Kenyan Pan-Africanist, and walking legal encyclopedia, P.L.O.Lumamba. Though I have been a student of two of the famous Greek philosophical thinkers, Platonism and the Aristotelian School, I still consider myself ignorant in the tenets of the law and it's complex Anglo-Latino phrases and expressions.

The caption above is so dear to my heart. I am writing as an avid reader and a nationalistic thinker.

My understanding of a constitution as the supreme law governing a state as well as my understanding of constitution as the only panacea to totalitarianism and anarchy gives me a cause to worry considering the various legal loopholes in our constitution. I am guided by my personal ideology that, In order to make sense of our own present, we need to understand our own past. What is our past as a country? What is our present? Why do we continue to use a constitution crafted at the laboratory of militarism by architects in uniform on the alter of indemnity to continue to be our suprema lex? Or was it written as a pro tempore? So the constitution that suppose to be an institution to govern us is creating confusion. May the judicial gods forgive me of contempt if I dare ask, is our 30 year constitution still relevant in the jurisprudence of our modern democratic dispensation? The Latin phrase, and may the sages of law pardon me if I get it wrong, Actio personalis moritur cum persona - A personal action dies with the person. Isn't it time we must realize that the actions of the framers and founding fathers of our outmoded at birth constitution must die with them?

So with respect to the legal wits, I ask in all judicial humility, is our constitution a document or a monument? The Republic and The Law by Plato has become monumental in world literature. Can we make a strong global case for ours as well? Will I be wrong, as an untutored lawyer, that the constituent assembly that drew our 1992 constitution was Ad-hoc and the framers were Ad idem? Is our constitution really operating on Baron De. Montesquieu's principles of Separation of Power and Checks and Balances? Can we ever wake up and have in Ghana like the Watergate Scandal that led to the resignation of US president Richard Nixon in 1974? Indeed, we have seen efforts by the UK parliament in its attempt to impeach then Prime Minister, Tony Blair during the British support of the invasion of Iraq by America in the hunt for Saddam Hussein. When will effective checks and balances at least lead to a pronouncement of impeachment? Can the sacking of UK's first black Finance Minister of Ghanaian descent, Kwasi Kwarteng and the subsequent resignation of Prime Minister, Lus Trus happen in Ghana in spite of incompetence swallowing our Finance Ministry?

If our constitution is not only a document and a confusion, why will a president of a 30 million people appoint over 10000 people, usually cronies, families and political apparatchiks to existing portfolio and in a blatant disregard for the law create incomprehensible and preposterous ministries to milk our already poor country dry? Of what economic significance is having two deputy Ministers for Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources when 'galamsey' continue to rape our virgin lands? Of what economic sense is it to have two deputy Ministers for Finance and still kneel before the doors of IMF for our daily bread?

I think unequivocally that our constitution is only a document for our libraries and not a monument for national governance. The time is now and not later for something worthwhile. We don't need constitutional amendment, neither do we need a wasteful constitutional review. Rather, we need the birth of a new monumental constitution not document.

Shadrack Oteng
Untutored at Law
@30/12/2022