Constitutional Review Proposals: 25 Issues Dominate

Dr Raymond Atuguba - Executive Secretary of the Constitutional Review Commission

Twenty-Five top issues have been identified by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), out of the 60,000 proposals so far submitted for consideration for amendment of the 1992 Constitution.

The issues include the payment of ex gratia and emoluments to ex-presidents and other Article 71 public office holders, whether or not to subject such payments to tax, whether to retain or repeal the Indemnity Clauses of the Transitional Provisions and whether or not to abolish the death penalty.

Others are whether or not to determine an upper ceiling for the number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court, the election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCE) and the empowerment of the Commission on Human Rights and Administration Justice (CHRAJ) to prosecute corruption cases.

According to the CRC, in order to solicit more public opinion on those issues, it had adopted an innovative information technology approach to target the 17.6 million mobile phone subscribers in the country to collate views on the issues via text messaging.

Under the innovation, the CRC will put out questions on each of the top 25 issues in the public domain every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and request the mobile telephony public to make contributions through text messaging at a cost of 50Gp per text.

The ‘Text-in Question Campaign’, which was rolled out in Accra last Friday, is expected to end in February 2011 and the Executive Secretary of the CRC, Dr Raymond Atuguba, is upbeat about the initiative.

“The Text-in Question Campaign is historic because this is the first time any organisation is using text messaging to aggregate citizens’ views on this scale.

Your massive participation will ensure that this initiative is sustained. It is convenient and in line with the reality of modern technology,” he remarked.

The questions on the top 25 issues and their proposed dates are as follows:

24/12/10 – What is your view on the payment of ex gratia and emoluments to ex-presidents and public office holders under the Constitution?

27/12/10 – The salaries, allowances, facilities, pensions and gratuity of sitting (and former) presidents are exempt from tax. What are your views on this?

29/12/10 – Should a Ghanaian who is also a citizen of another country be disqualified from being elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) or appointed as a minister of state (and why)?

31/12/10 – What is your view on the proposal to limit the number of ministers and ministries appointed by the President?

03/01/11 – What is your view on the provision in the Constitution which requires the President to appoint the majority of his ministers from Parliament?

05/01/11 – It has been proposed that the roles of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General should be separated. What are your views on this?

07/01/11 – What do you think of proposals for an independent national prosecutor to take the Attorney-General’s place in initiating and prosecuting all criminal offences?

10/01/11 – What do you think should be the consequence when a sitting President or Vice President leaves the party on whose ticket he was voted into power?

12/01/11 – Some have proposed that presidential and parliamentary elections should be held earlier than December. Do you agree? Why?

14/01/11 – Should any MP be allowed to propose a bill with cost implications to Parliament for passage into law? Or should only the President have this right?

17/01/11 – The Constitution provides for a minimum of nine judges to be appointed to the Supreme Court but it doesn’t specify the maximum. What are your views on this?

19/01/11 – Instead of the Chief Justice choosing which Supreme Court judge sits on a case, should all Supreme Court justices hear all cases in the Supreme Court?

21/01/11 – What is your view on the proposal that a Constitutional Court should be established to hear only constitutional cases?

24/01/11 – What is your position on the debate that district, municipal and metropolitan chief executives should be elected and not appointed by the President?

26/01/11 – What do you think of the constitutional provision which makes the President the appointing authority of 30 per cent of the members of a district assembly?

28/01/11 – What do you think of the provision in the Constitution which makes elections to the district assemblies and other local government units non-partisan?

31/01/11 – What is your view on the Supreme Court decision that (corruption cases aside) CHRAJ cannot investigate complaints without an identifiable complainant?

02/02/11 – What do you think of proposals to separate the human rights, administrative justice and anti-corruption mandates of CHRAJ into different institutions?

04/02/11 – What do you think about the proposals to empower CHRAJ to prosecute corruption cases?

07/02/11 – What do you think about proposals to establish a special fund to finance the operations of the independent constitutional bodies?

09/02/11 – What do you think of the provision in the Constitution that a chief shall not take part in active party politics?

11/02/11 – Should the retirement age of 60 be maintained, increased or decreased? Why?

14/02/11 – Do you think the Indemnity Clauses of the Transitional Provisions should be retained or repealed?

16/02/11 – What is your view on calls for the abolition of the death penalty?

18/02/11 – Should the Directive Principles of State Policy (under Chapter Six of the Constitution) be enforceable in court?

According to Dr Atuguba, the top 25 issues were selected after a thorough assessment of the more than 60,000 submissions made, which ranged from a one-sentence submission to a 300-page submission.

He appealed to the media to support the Test-in Questions Campaign and “constitute knowledgeable panels – not political shouting matches – around these 25 issues and keep citizens informed on the issues”.