Some thoughts arising out of the CHRAJ palaver by H. Prempeh: First, I still dont get all the pretentious moralizing and moral outrage. As usual, this, too, shall pass. Our habit of episodic, ritualistic singling out of the Offender-of-the-Day for public naming and shaming is going to change NOTHING, as long as the longstanding, systemic and structural enablers remain in place. Sacking the CHRAJ Commissioner (which the President, rightfully, does not have power singlehandedly to do) or forcing her to resign is like trying to use human sacrifice to cure a man-made epidemic. We will keep on parading one Offender of the Day after another unless and until we heed well-considered counsel and start taking our permissive, business-as-usual constitutional and legal regime apart for a comprehensive overhaul. Many of our public servants are little more than rational, self-interested (i.e., human) beneficiaries of a deeply flawed system. There is little to be gained from making any one of them THE problem. Second, the issues pertaining to the CHRAJ Commissioners housing and rent are apparently contained in the Auditor-Generals Report, which is a public document. So, had Graphic not published the story, would we all have known about this matter that is in the Auditor-Generals Report? Probably NOT. Yet the Auditor-Generals Report contains, year after year, numerous such instances of waste and unlawful expenditures in our MDAs. Predictably, nothing happens to these findings. Meanwhile, the proponents of the current constitutional amendments would like to make Development Plans legally binding on our governments. It is a fanciful idea that will amuse even the oligarchs of the Chinese Communist Party. Why dont we do the feasible and easy things first? Why not make the Auditor-Generals Report legally binding on our governments, so that the Attorney-General will be duty-bound, by law, to refer for criminal investigation, prosecution and recovery all findings of illegal transactions and expenditures identified in the Auditor-Generals Report? Third, we (Ghanaians) have tended to make constitutions in order to transition from a military regime to civilian democratic government. Thus, we do not make constitutions with good governance as our topmost priority. The primary purpose for which you design or write a constitution determines how you design it and what you write into it. In matters of constitutional design, as in life generally, you are likely to reap what you sow, given the context. If a constitution is considered to be the the rules of the game by which we govern ourselves, we and our constitutions have been overly concerned with the rules of entry and exit (who gets to play the game and how they get in or leave) than with the rules of play (how the game is played--how power is exercised or constrained--by whoever gets in). What we need to change about our constitution and sub-constitutional legal regime are the RULES OF PLAY. They suck! Fourth, putting appointments of Independent Constitutional officeholders (CHRAJ, EC, BoG Governor, Auditor-General) through Parliament, which we must do, is helpful BUT NOT sufficient. Parliamentary approval of all such appointments must be by a super-majority, not a simple majority, to ensure that the appointment has multiparty support and not perceived as a one-party patronage appointment. Fifth, the fact that an appointment must be made by the President does not mean the President must necessarily originate the nomination. In many countries, civil society and various outside entities are allowed to originate nomination of independent officeholders, with the President required to appoint such nominees, subject to the approval of Parliament. We should consider this model of originating nominations for Independent constitutional offices like CHRAJ and EC from within civil society (public), making the Presidents appointment of such officeholders merely ceremonial, once the nominee has received the (super majority) approval of Parliament. Sixth, the tenure of all such officeholders must also be delinked from the terms and conditions of superior court judges. Independent officeholders must have a limited term, either a single-term that is not co-terminus with the 4-year of a government (e.g., 7 or 9 years) or a renewable term (maximum 2 terms) that is also not co-terminus with the 4-year terms of a government (e.g. 5 years each). Seventh, let me repeat what I have been saying for sometime: We need to separate CHRAJ into two bodies, a Human Rights and Administrative Justice Commission and an Anticorruption Commission. Currently CHRAJ is a three-in-one body, pretending to do human rights, administrative justice, and anticorruption all at once. If you accuse them of not fighting corruption, they will tell you they have other equally important mandates they are working on and not enough money to do them all. And they would be right. A Commission that is set up solely to fight corruption cannot make such excuses if it is seen to be doing nothing to fight corruption. In fact, as it turns out, CHRAJ spends over 90% of its time doing human rights and administrative justice. Fighting corruption, then, has become the stepchild in CHRAJ. A new Anticorruption Commission can take the place of NCCE, which we really dont need to have in a constitution. Civic education can be done by a Human Rights Commission (in fact, CHRAJ does some of that already) and, at any rate, must be mainstreamed into school curricula by the Ministry of Education.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:59:33 +0000
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