A Governance Advisor, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, has suggested that sweeping changes to the 1992 Constitution will accelerate socioeconomic development of the nation.
He explained that the processes for reviewing the Constitution should be void of political influences so that concerns of ordinary citizens would be considered.
“You have a situation whereby politicians can just, by a stroke of a pen, decide what they and what they do not like and the risk of just summary rejection continues to haunt constitution review processes,” he lamented.
Mr Barker-Vormawor indicated that when the first review was done it was based on Commission of Inquiry with powers under the 1992 Constitution and by the Supreme Court whatever was produced from the Constitution review processes was advisory to the Executive to either accept or reject.
He observed that processes involved in drafting and reviewing the constitution of states varied widely from one country to another which came along with several concerns not limited to institutional design to adopt, and what effects new decisions may have on the citizenry and conversations on the need to draft a new constitution had already received distinct views and suggestions.
Mr Baker-Vormawor noted thatit was time Ghanaians visited the importance of getting new laws to govern the nation since between 2010 and 2012, they expressed views for sweeping changes to the 1992 Constitution.
“This is what we realised with the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives after the white paper said we want it in a particular way, you had the government which did not listen to the people but went back to the Constitution Review Commission’s response and took it away entirely.
“If you can hand over the entire processes to politicians, it means we are never going to get the right issues done which is not aligned with their political interests and that is one of the fears around that and the country has over the years suffered from an overbearing executive that takes decisions for all without proper consultation and consideration,” Mr Baker-Vormawor contended.
He averred that from history, the use of a presidential system, would always have winner-takes-all kind of government and quizzed how to deal with the situation. –myjoyonline.com
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