Yaw Acheampong Boafo, a former President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), has asserted that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is behind the recommendation by the Constitution Review Committee (CRC) for the Association to be removed from the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
Speaking in a recent interview on Good Evening Ghana, the former GBA president said that the recommendation for the association to be removed from the Constitution is without merit.
According to him, none of the councils and bodies to which the GBA was added in the Constitution has complained about its presence.
“That is where I said I’m very cynical. The GBA has representation on the Police Council, the Immigration Council, the General Legal Council, the Judicial Council, and the National Media Commission. Has the Police brought a report from 1993 that representatives of the GBA on the Police Council have not discharged their work properly or diligently? Has the Prisons Council brought that report? Has the National Media Commission said that?
“Is there any empirical evidence that GBA representation on those constitutional bodies has not discharged its duties diligently?” he questioned.
He indicated that even the first President of the Fourth Republic, the late Jerry John Rawlings, who had a lot of issues with the GBA, still added it to the 1992 Constitution.
“What is sad is this: in 1992, during the process leading to the drafting of the Constitution, the GBA at that time, because of the fact that there was no immunity for the assembly, decided to boycott. Which President suffered under the GBA more than President Rawlings? President Rawlings, who presided over that process, who may not have had the best democratic credentials, still saw the wisdom in placing the Ghana Bar Association at the centre of the democratic experience,” he said.
He claimed that the demand for the association to be removed from the Constitution is being championed by the NDC and that the CRC accepted it without any justification.
Ghana Bar Association to be removed from the 1992 Constitution – CRC Report
“They (the NDC) are articulating a partisan argument, not because it is empirical… At the time that that particular party is in power and has a reset agenda, the Constitutional Review Committee concedes that point and takes the GBA out because of that. And as I said, I would have accepted it if the Police had said GBA representation on the Police Council had not helped us… None of them complained about us. Only openly partisan lawyers complained about the GBA and the CRC conceded that point. I have a problem with that,” he said.
Watch a video of his remarks below:
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