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Ghana Developing Democratic Institutions
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Jerry John Rawlings, president of the Fourth Republic of
Ghana
Courtesy Embassy of Ghana, Washington
The growing importance of the legislative arm of the government
in national affairs was reflected in several developments. At the
state opening of parliament on April 29, 1993, President Rawlings
gave an address in which he emphasized that the contributions of
all citizens were necessary in order to achieve the national goals
of economic development and social justice. He reminded Ghanaians
that the proper forum for political debate under constitutional
rule was parliament and called upon the leaders of the parties
making up his ruling Progressive Alliance (the NDC, the National
Convention Party (NCP), and the Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere
(EGLE) Party) to welcome serious dialogue with the opposition
outside parliament. Such a move would enable the opposition parties
that had boycotted the parliamentary elections to contribute to
national political debate. The NPP made its views on national
policy heard through invited participation in parliamentary
committees, thus attempting to influence debates and particular
legislation.
The executive and the legislative branches worked to ensure
passage of nine measures that would establish certain major state
institutions by the July 7, 1993, deadline stipulated in the
constitution. The institutions created were the National Commission
on Civic Education, the National Electoral Commission, the District
Assemblies Common Fund, the Commission on Human Rights and
Administrative Justice, the Minerals Commission, the Forestry
Commission, the Fisheries Commission, the National Council for
Higher Education, and the National Media Commission.
The Courts Act of July 6, 1993, incorporated the public
tribunals created under the PNDC into the established court system.
It defined the jurisdiction of regional tribunals and established
lower courts--circuit tribunals and community tribunals--to replace
the circuit courts and the district (magistrate) courts. It also
established the National House of Chiefs, the regional houses of
chiefs, and traditional councils, and it provided that parliament
could create other tribunals as the need arose. The tribunals are
empowered to try criminal and civil cases. Throughout 1993 and
1994, however, the Judicial Council of Ghana, was working to amend
the Courts Act to allow the pre-existing circuit and district
courts to hear cases meant for circuit and community tribunals
until such time as the new tribunals become fully operational. The
establishment of the lower tribunals has been delayed because of
lack of staff and of suitable court buildings in all 110 districts,
most of which are poor and rural.
Parliament also passed the controversial Serious Fraud Office
Bill. This bill established a Serious Fraud Office as a specialized
agency of the state to monitor, to investigate, and on the
authority of the attorney general, to prosecute fraud and serious
economic crimes. According to the bill's proponents, complex fraud
and economic crimes were being committed that posed a direct threat
to national security and that were possibly linked to illegal drug
trafficking, none of which could be adequately investigated and
prosecuted under existing law.
Critics of the bill, which included the Ghana Bar Association,
saw it as an attempt on the part of the ruling NDC to destroy the
NPP, which considered itself the party of business. They also
viewed it as containing provisions conflicting directly with
constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to liberty and
property. Under the bill's provisions, anyone can be investigated
for fraud except the president, in whose case the constitution
provides elaborate procedures for impeachment in case of abuse of
power and trust.
Parliament's success can be attributed to the leaders of the
opposition and the ruling Progressive Alliance, who chose to settle
their differences through dialogue and constitutional means rather
than through confrontation. The same tendency to operate within the
framework of the new constitution applies to the judicial realm as
well, where the opposition, especially the NPP, declared itself the
principal watchdog and custodian of civil liberties and of the 1992
constitution. This task is consistent with the leading role played
by the opposition in the demand for a return to constitutional rule
during the PNDC era.
On July 22, 1993, a week after celebrating its first
anniversary, the NPP won three major and surprising victories in
the Supreme Court. The court, which the opposition believed to be
under the control of the executive, upheld two suits filed by the
party that sought to nullify certain existing laws and decrees that
the NPP claimed conflicted with the 1992 constitution. In the first
suit, the court ordered the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation to grant
the NPP "fair and equal access to its facilities within two weeks"
to enable the party to articulate its views on the 1993 budget in
the same manner as the ruling NDC.
In the second judgment, the court ruled that certain sections
of Public Order Decree 1972 were inconsistent with the 1992
constitution, which grants the individual the right to demonstrate
or to take part in a procession without necessarily obtaining a
permit from the police. The NPP had challenged as unconstitutional
the arrest and subsequent prosecution of some of its members for
demonstrating against the 1993 budget on February 15, 1993. On that
day the Accra police had assaulted the demonstrators, severely
injuring many of them. The verdict in the NPP suit also applied to
the shooting attack on university students by commandos on March
22-23. The students were protesting the government's refusal to
meet their demand for an increase in student loans from 90,000 to
200,000 cedis (for value of the Ghanaian
cedi--see Glossary)
because of a rise in the cost of living. A third suit, which
concerned police powers with respect to public assemblies, did not
go forward because the law had been repealed.
Two months later, the NPP scored another victory in the Supreme
Court when the party sought a declaration to stop the election of
district chief executives (DCEs) ahead of anticipated District
Assembly elections. The NPP noted that election of DCEs by sitting
district assemblies that had only a few months' remaining tenure in
office would infringe the letter and the intent of the
constitution, which requires that newly elected assemblies, not
outgoing assemblies, elect DCEs. The court granted the NPP's
application for an interim injunction and ordered the suspension of
DCE elections until the court could examine the constitutionality
of the elections process. Candidates for election as DCEs had been
nominated by President Rawlings. Within a few days, an announcement
was made that Rawlings had only appointed acting district
secretaries, not DCEs, for all 110 district assemblies; the
president's appointees, however, appeared to be mostly the same
individuals nominated as DCEs. The opposition then took this matter
to the Supreme Court on a charge of unconstitutionality, but the
court upheld Rawlings's action in May 1994.
To crown the constitutional victories of the NPP, the Supreme
Court ruled at the end of 1993 that December 31, marking the 31st
December 1981 Revolution, should no longer be celebrated as a
public holiday. The NPP had been particularly outraged when newly
elected President Rawlings declared that any interpretation of the
1992 constitution would be subject to the spirit of the June 4,
1979, uprising and the 31st December 1981 Revolution. For the
opposition, these events had ushered in the most repressive and
bloody decade in the country's postcolonial history, and they had
no place in the new democratic constitutional order.
The NPP, after documenting alleged irregularities of the
November 1992 presidential elections, consolidated its position as
the main opposition party in the country. It presented itself as
the "constitutional" party, the objectives of which are to ensure
that constitutional rule is established in Ghana and that the
private sector becomes the engine of growth and development.
Furthermore, at a widely reported press conference in July 1993
marking the first anniversary of the NPP, the party's chairman
proclaimed his party's readiness to "do business" with the NDC
government.
Doing business with the government did not mean, as many NPP
members had feared, that some members of the NPP executive would
take posts in the NDC administration. It meant talking face-to-face
with the presidency, the legislature, and the judiciary as well as
with independent institutions of state. These dealings were
intended to enhance the constitutional rights of all Ghanaians and
to ensure respect for human rights and proper management of the
economy.
The new NPP policy--that of promoting dialogue between the NPP
and the government, which began in November 1993--contributed to a
reduction of political tension in the country. Unlike some of its
West African neighbors that are haunted by political uncertainty
and torn by war and civil strife, Ghana continued to enjoy relative
peace and political stability. This was true despite the flare-up
of interethnic violence and killing in the northern region between
the Konkomba and the Nanumba in early 1994, leading to the
declaration of a brief state of emergency in the region.
The minor opposition parties of the Nkrumahist tradition, which
had boycotted dialogue with the NDC government, also managed after
a long period of internal bickering to put their houses in order in
anticipation of the 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The parties subscribing to the ideals of Nkrumah's Convention
People's Party, with the exception of the People's National
Convention led by former president Limann, united to form the new
People's Convention Party, receiving a certificate of registration
in January 1994.
One of the major concerns of the NPP and other opposition
parties was the existence in the Fourth Republic of paramilitary
groups and revolutionary organs, such as CDRs, which had not been
disbanded. In August 1993 all CDRs were put into a new organization
known as the Association of Committees for the Defence of the
Revolution. This new association was to continue mobilizing the
populace for community development and local initiatives within the
framework of the 1992 Constitution.
The NPP persisted in its demands for a new voters' register and
for national identity cards to ensure free and fair elections in
1996. When President Rawlings suggested that it was cheaper to
revise the voters' register than to issue national identity cards,
the cost of which would be prohibitive for the government, the NPP
threatened to boycott the 1996 elections unless both electoral
demands were met. The potential boycott was seemingly averted in
February 1994 when the United States pledged to fund the printing
of identity cards for voters in the 1996 elections.
The following August the chairman of the National Electoral
Commission promised that the commission would take appropriate
steps to ensure that the presidential and parliamentary elections
in 1996 would be free and fair. These steps were to include the
training of some 80,000 party agents as observers. The National
Electoral Commission later indicated that identification cards
would be issued to voters during registration for a new and revised
electoral roll in September 1995. The Commission also favored
holding the elections on the same day and felt that Ghanaians
living abroad should have the right to vote. Eventually the NDC
government promised to ensure that the 1996 elections would be free
and fair and that international observers would be allowed.
Meanwhile, on March 22, 1994, the first nonpartisan district
level elections to be conducted under the Fourth Republic were
successfully held in all but thirteen districts, mostly in the
north, where polling was postponed because of interethnic
conflicts. About 10,880 candidates, 383 of them women, competed for
4,282 seats in 97 district, municipal, and metropolitan assemblies.
The new district assemblies were inaugurated in June 1994, marking
another step in the establishment of a democratic system of local
government.
By mid-1994, there was general agreement that the government's
human rights record had improved considerably. The improvement
resulted in part from the activities of the many human rights
groups being established in the country. The Ghana Committee on
Human and People's Rights, founded by a group of dedicated lawyers,
trade unionists, and journalists and inaugurated in January 1991,
was perhaps the most prominent of these. Another was the Commission
on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, a government body
established in 1993 designed to deal with human rights issues and
violations
(see Human Rights
, ch. 5).
Data as of November 1994
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