Acting General Secretary of the Convention People’s Party, James Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr, popularly known as Kabila has posited that the 1979 constitution under the third republic has been far better than the current constitution under the fourth republic.
In an interview with Kwame Afrifa Mensah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, he explained that the 1979 constitution established the strict practice of separation of powers. On the other hand, the 1992 constitution has no regard for strict separation of powers.
According to him, “not a single minister of his was found guilty in any act of corruption” under the third republic. “It was open, transparent, running the most efficient, all-inclusive, functional constitution in 1979. It was the best and it is the best thus far. There was a strict separation of powers”, he added.
Contrasting the practice under the 1992 constitution to the 1979 constitution, he said about the former: “Today, there is no country operating with a constitution like ours. The fundamental problem is about ‘misappreciation’ of power and the fundamental fact that it is a deceptive constitution used to deceive some deceptive persons such as Jerry John Rawlings. There is no president who is courageous to make changes to the constitution. So the constitution is now an albatross hanging around our necks”.
He furthered that “those who drafted the 1992 constitution were crack lawyers”. “Our constitution is too problematic that if you decide to use it to solve its own problems, you will come back to inconsistencies”, he added.
The 1979 Constitution of Ghana adopted the American model of the concept thus establishing a Presidential system of government where each arm exercises power to the exclusion of the others and no member of one arm of government belongs to the other.
However, the 1992 Constitution of Ghana embraces the hybrid system of separation of powers.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
