Prof. Ernest Kofi Abotsi
The Dean of the School of Law, University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Professor Kofi Abotchi, says the biggest problem facing Ghana’s constitutionalism is the corrosive and corrupting power of party politics.
According to him, it appears that the framers of the 1992 constitution had underestimated the power of party politics to exploit, abuse and corrupt the constitution to serve their parochial interests.
“I think if you look at, for example, the provision on political parties, from section 55 onwards, you get the sense that there was a certain general assumption that political parties and political parties that form governments will naturally act in the best interests of the people of Ghana. “, he said on JoyFM’s Super Morning Show.
Professor Abotsi said the framers had seemingly ignored the history of political parties in Ghana and underestimated how their nature could adversely affect governance and governance structures in the country.
βI think what the framers of the constitution may have underestimated is the nature of the history of our political parties. There is a serious historical problem of our political parties in Ghana which was started by the UGCC. And you’d be surprised that this historical momentum is with us today,β he said.
βThey continue to be reflected in party relations as what we have is the tendency of these parties to deepen and create sectionalism in which members of certain political parties when they are in power is their time and when they are out of power whoever comes is the time of.
“And there’s the trend of us against them and there’s the trend of a cycle in which there’s a benefit β that cycle is over, the new cycle begins and these new party members enjoy,” he added.
He concluded that while there have been recent movements for constitutional reforms, these reforms will ultimately face the same problems facing the current constitution.
According to him, no constitution is perfect as they can be circumvented by human ingenuity.
βSo if you ask me the problem is basically not the constitution, constitutional reform can only do so much. Look, no matter how you draft statutes, lawyers spend their time analyzing and understanding the weakness of the new draft and you would always find the weaknesses of the new draft,β he said.
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