Presidential powers under scrutiny: Make appointments transparent - Constitutional Committee recommends
The appointment of the heads of independent constitutional bodies must be made more transparent to ensure credibility and prevent any political interference in their operations, the Constitution Review Consultative Committee (CRCC) has recommended.
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Such a process, it said, would ensure that only persons who qualified would apply, be vetted, interviewed and shortlisted to occupy those positions.
The committee said that would also help deal with the wide powers of the President in terms of appointments and ensure that the process was consistent with the values of equal opportunities for “all of our people, whether or not they have friends in high places”.
“If you make the process more open and transparent, there is credibility because everybody gets to see whether one merits the position they have applied for or not,” the committee said.
Article 43(2) of the 1992 Constitution, which deals with appointment of members of the Electoral Commission, refers to Article 70 that provides for such persons, including other heads and deputies of independent constitutional bodies, to be appointed by the President in consultation with the Council of State.
Transparent process
Speaking to the Daily Graphic at the end of stakeholders’ consultations to validate the preliminary report of the CRCC Report in Accra last Saturday, the Chairperson of the CRCC, Clara Kasser-Tee, said: “Making the heads of independent bodies to be appointed by the President even with parliamentary approval, we take the view that we open it up some more so that we exercise in full, as consistent with the aspirations of the Ghanaian people, equality of opportunity.”
“People must go through the due process to occupy a position rather than people having friends in political places before you can get appointed to such positions,” she said.
Validation
The two-day event attracted people from all walks of life, including representatives from the Office of the Attorney-General, current and retired Justices of the Supreme Court, the Ghana Bar Association, the Judiciary, current and former MPs, ministers of state, members of the diplomatic corps, policy think tanks, traditional leaders, civil society, the clergy, as well as private citizens.
The participants reviewed and validated the preliminary report of the CRCC to build consensus and nurture ownership of the constitutional review process.
The findings will be used as the foundation for a sovereign national conference to solicit the buy-in of Ghanaians for a possible holistic review or isolated amendments to the 1992 Constitution as stakeholders might determine.
It was organised by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, which constituted the review of the report of the 2010 Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), its accompanying White Paper and considered other provisions that might lend themselves to possible review.
This exercise is to enable the ministry to follow up on the effort that started in 2010, apprise itself of matters that have emerged thereafter and identify specific provisions in the 1992 Constitution that could engender debate for the review of the Constitution.
Strength of character
The CRCC chairperson said she believed that once any qualified individuals got appointed to head any independent body, they would know that they got the appointment on merit.
That, she said, would give one the strength of character to do what their mandates required of them in accordance with the Constitution.
“We have checks and balances, control systems, but primarily, they are subject to the Constitution. So even for the persons themselves, confidence-wise, they will be more confident in themselves.
“And I am sure that through the vetting and interview in the recruitment process, if the persons were people who could not hold their own in that office, it would become apparent,” she said.
Drawing lessons from other countries, Mrs Kasser-Tee, who is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law, said there were some vetting processes she watched in other jurisdictions that were worth emulating.
“Because those vetting processes were open, one could tell whether at the end the person did a good job and whether the person can do a good job or not.
“So, in terms of credibility, an open process brings credibility to the process. We are growing and we should be interested in deepening our democracy since we all agree that the current process is not working very well,” she said.
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Wishful thinking
The CRCC chairperson said Ghanaians could not run away from the fact that Presidents would often appoint people they liked since it was only a human thing.
“So, if we are pretending that any President, not just the sitting President, will be appointing someone they are not comfortable with, it will be wishful thinking and we are not being realistic.
“But I believe that once those appointees are going to be subject to the Constitution, I do not think we lose anything by making open the appointment process and by granting equality of opportunity to all who believe they qualify to hold such position,” she added.
She indicated that once people were appointed, the blame should be put squarely on the appointees to justify their position because “these are protected positions”.
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However, with a history of one-time EC Chairperson being removed from office, Mrs Kasser-Tee said such political intervention showed what she described as “the under belly of the initial belief that you were protected”.
“So, I think the heads of independent bodies have realised that they are not as protected as they believed they were in spite of the clear wording of the Constitution,” she added.
