Ghanaians marked last Sunday, January 7, 2024, as Constitution Day when they celebrated the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Some Ghanaians expressed their displeasure about the rules in the Constitution during an interview with Focus FM, calling for its amendment while others are satisfied with the rules in it.
“I think there should be an amendment of the Constitution rather than changing everything in it since it will take time to change the whole thing. They should bring the chiefs on board of governance when there is a new constitution since they were the sole rulers during the olden days.”
“I think the constitution should be maintained because it favors all of us.” “I think the constitution should be amended because some part of it favors some people more than others so if they change that part it will help a lot.”
Given this, a private legal practitioner, lawyer Prince Benson Mankotam has suggested that amending the 1992 Constitution of Ghana is not necessary if it falls into a law-abiding citizen’s hands or the right hands. To him, if the Constitution were amended without people abiding by it, then it would not provide the changes Ghanaians are looking for.
Prince Benson Mankotam on the Teknokrat show with Audrey Sika Dzifa when discussing the 1992 Constitutional reviews. “If the constitution is reviewed and it falls into the wrong hands, it will still be wrong.
It will be dead; it will be what I will call a hyper-size one. So now we should check the people whose hands this book is falling into, which is the government,” he said.
He continued by citing an example to show whether the Constitution should be amended or changed. “If you look at Article 76 of the constitution, it says the Cabinet should have a number between 10 and 19.
If you place it in a very disciplined president’s hand, the person will say that the proponent of this constitution contemplated that a maximum of 19 ministers would be able to administer the affairs of this nation and so I will appoint more ministers but only 19 will be cabinet ministers.
“This is what I say when the constitution falls into the wrong hands and that is what is happening now. Our president has over 120 ministers and anytime we speak about it, he has constitutional backing,” he explained.