The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the government to establish a deliberative Assembly to contribute to the recommendations of the Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh Constitution Review Committee (CRC) before any referendum or amendments to the 1992 Constitution are carried through.
Such an Assembly should have representatives of political parties, organised labour, professional bodies, the National House of Chiefs, religious bodies, women's groups, persons with disabilities, students and youth, the private sector, civil society and the regions.
At a press conference to state the NPP’s position on the Constitution review process, the chairman of the party’s Policy Coordination Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, said the government must bring a Constituent or Consultative Assembly Bill to Parliament for enactment to give it a legal basis before the establishment of such a Consultative Assembly.
“In our view, a Constituent Assembly, established by law, is the single mechanism that answers all three demands now being made of the NDC Government. It delivers the broad agreement across parties, labour and identifiable groups that the TUC has called for. It provides the binding legal pathway and timelines that the Citizens' Platform has asked for,” he stated.
Platform
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said such a move would give the country one platform on which consensus can be built around the 100 issues currently in contest between the NDC Government and the Independent Constitution Review Committee.
That, he said, was how it was done in 1969, in 1979 and in 1992.
He explained that where broad, representative bodies deliberate amendments before a referendum, the amendments hold, saying that where a party in government drafts alone and asks the people to ratify, the results were narrow, bitter, or reversed.
“A Constituent Assembly gives every major constituency a seat and a vote on substance. It provides the forum where the 100 disputed issues can be argued out and settled, so that what goes to the people is a consensus text and not a Government text.
“And it gives the final product a legitimacy no single party can confer. Its output can then go to a referendum under Article 290. That is the sequence the NPP supports: consultation by the Committee, deliberation by a Constituent Assembly, ratification by the people.”
Disagreement
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said in the absence of a Constituent Assembly or a comparable mechanism for negotiated consensus, any effort to bundle the Government's preferred amendments into a referendum, as one question or several, “will not receive the support of the New Patriotic Party.
“The NPP will oppose the processes namely a yes vote at the referendum and the bills in Parliament,” he stated.
He reminded the Government that Article 290 required that at a referendum, at least 40 per cent of those entitled to vote must vote, and at least 75 per cent of those voting must vote yes.
He said those thresholds were written in deliberately, so that the entrenched provisions of the Constitution could never be changed by one political party acting alone.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the Constitution was not the property of the NDC or of the NPP.
“It belongs to the people of Ghana, and every government must govern under it. That is why its amendment cannot be a partisan exercise,” he stated.
Partnership
He said the NPP wanted the exercise to succeed, stressing that the party wanted the Committee's good recommendations to become law.
“That confidence cannot be manufactured in a drafting room before November. It is built by bringing people in, not by shutting the door on them,” he said.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah, therefore, called on the government to listen to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Citizens' Platform on Constitution Reform, chiefs, the professional bodies, the students, the traders and the farmers who told the Committee what they wanted.
He said the NPP would partner the government to review the Constitution if it sets up the Constituent Assembly.
