Article 94 Of The 1992 Ghana Republican Constitution: Supreme Court Must Answer Professor Kwaku Asare’s Question

The Supreme Court (SC) has never answered Professor Kwaku Asare’s, (aka Kwaku Azar), question: “The law does not say anything about when this disqualification applies. Is it at the time of filing for the party primary, national election, voting day, or on the first day of Parliament?” . I will go for the first day of Parliament as happened in Mr. Komla Gbedemah’s precedence in 1969. This particle Article 94 is the exact replica of Article 71 of the 1969 constitution that barred Mr. Gbedemah from entering Parliament. It did not prevent him from filing for nomination, being a candidate, being elected and, eventually, being a parliamentary candidate-elect. Through all these processes he was not a member of Parliament. It was on October 1^st, 1969 when he was sworn in as a member of Parliament that the said Article kicked in, thus, he was not QUALIFIED to be a member of Parliament, and this was the first day of Parliament.

To leave the time when this disqualification applies to the Electoral Commission (EC) is very dangerous. According to the Supreme Court, “the time for attaining the eligibility and qualification status of a parliamentary candidate therefore ’comes alive’ and ‘come into force’ from the time the EC sets the date to file nominations or parliamentary elections’.

In 2016 the time for this nomination was September. In 2020 the time for this nomination was October. Every election cycle will have a different nomination date. Why will a candidate born in October 1995 not qualified for the 2016 elections but a person born in October 1999 qualify for the 2020 elections. In 2016 a person born in October 1995 would be one month shy of twenty-one years and would have been disqualified when nominations opened in September, as per the SC however, in 2020 a person born in October 1999 qualified. If the EC chooses to open nominations on January 01, 2024, then any body who is not twenty-one years cannot be qualified or present himself or herself as a candidate. If the framers of the 1992 Ghana Republican Constitution intended prospective candidates to be twenty-one years at different election cycles, then common sense was on a long vacation. It is on the first day of Parliament when one needs to be twenty-one. The same applies to the forty-year Presidency requirement. January 07, the first day of Parliament, should be the determinant qualification date.

It was wrong during Mr. Adamu Daramani Sakande’s (may his soul rest in peace) case, and it is wrong today. Two wrongs do not make a right. If the wrong decision was made in the last decade, it does not mean the same wrong must be repeated in this era.

In Mr. Adamu Daramani Sakande’s (may his soul rest in peace) case he owed allegiance to another country (The United Kingdom) other than Ghana on the first day of Parliament so, like Gbedemah, was disqualified to be a member of Parliament. If Mr. Gbedemah did not go to prison for participating in the elections, why did Mr. Adamu Daramani Sakande (may his soul rest in peace) suffer a prison term for similar provisions. This was made possible by The Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) attempt to educate contestants of the provisions of portions of the constitution on the Presidential and the Parliamentary Nomination Forms. If prospective Presidential and Parliamentary Candidates do not know who qualifies to be what they are aspiring for, then they are not worth voting for, simply because they are ignoramuses who cannot sit in the law-making chambers of our country. The EC must desist from reproducing portions of the constitution on subsequent nomination forms.

In the case of Mr. Gbedemah, he was not cleared on October 01, 1969 during the first sitting of the chamber so he was not qualified to be a member. In Honorable Quayson’s case, he was cleared and qualified on January 07, 2020.

Stop this by-election waste of money and give back his seat. The EC cannot conduct elections in Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL) who do not have a representative but in a hurry to conduct a needless by-election in Assin North.

Written by
Nana Osei Mensah Bonsu
(Migration and Citizenship Consultant)