Deported West Africans to Ghana case: Supreme Court orders A-G to produce agreement with US government for inspection

The Supreme Court has ordered the Attorney-General to produce the document covering Ghana’s decision to accept West African deportees who were previously held by United States (US) authorities. 

Per the orders of the court, the document is to be made available to lawyers for Democracy Hub, the group which has gone to the apex court to challenge the constitutionality of the government’s decision to accept the deportees in an agreement with the US government without parliamentary approval.

The document is to be made available to the President of the panel hearing the case. 

Background

Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution requires that a treaty, agreement or convention executed by or under the authority of the President should be subjected to ratification either by an Act of Parliament or by a resolution of Parliament supported by the votes of more than one-half of all Members of Parliament.

In a suit filed at the Supreme Court, Democracy Hub is arguing that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government of Ghana and the US for the reception and detention of West African nationals deported from the US constituted an agreement within the meaning of Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution, and therefore, ought to have received parliamentary ratification before execution.

The production of the document would help the court to ascertain whether or not the MoU constituted an international agreement requiring parliamentary action under Article 75.

The group argues that the said MoU, which allows the country to receive and detain deportees from the United States for onward transfer to their countries of origin, amounts to an international agreement that must, by law, receive prior parliamentary approval before implementation.

According to the plaintiff, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration had said the MoU was part of broader negotiations to ease US-imposed immigration restrictions on the country.

The understanding, the plaintiff said, involved the country’s agreement to receive and facilitate the onward deportation of West African nationals removed from the United States to their respective countries.

The writ stated that pursuant to the said MoU, on September 6, 2025, 14 West African immigrants, all of whom had previously been detained in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, were involuntarily repatriated to Ghana and received at the Kotoka International Airport by officers of the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ghana Armed Forces.