CRIC must ensure consensus is reached before amendment bills are drafted – Dr Asante

Director of Policy Engagement and Partnerships at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, has urged the Constitution Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) to build consensus among stakeholders before drafting bills to amend the country’s Constitution.

According to him, the committee must establish a mechanism to resolve disagreements and consider counter-proposals to ensure that the constitutional reform process enjoys broad public legitimacy.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Law on Sunday, November 1, Dr Asante said the need to build consensus was particularly important where disagreements remained over proposals contained in the government’s position paper and recommendations from the Constitutional Review Committee.

“Regardless of what the mandate is, what the CRIC must do is to ensure that where there are disagreements or counter-proposals, there is a mechanism to build consensus before these amendment bills are drafted, because this is where we build the legitimacy of the process,” he said.

According to him, the committee was established with a mandate to translate the government’s position paper into concrete constitutional reforms.

He explained that CRIC’s appointment letter required it to convert the government’s position paper and develop two amendment bills; one dealing with non-entrenched provisions and the other with entrenched provisions of the Constitution.

However, Dr Asante pointed to what he described as a lack of clarity regarding the committee’s precise mandate.

He said while the committee’s appointment letter appeared to focus on translating the government’s position paper into amendment bills, a communication from the Attorney-General suggested that CRIC was also expected to consider the government’s position paper alongside the report of the Constitutional Review Committee chaired by Professor H Kwasi Prempeh.

According to Dr Asante, the differing descriptions have created uncertainty over exactly what the committee is required to do.

“If you look at the communication that came from the Attorney-General, it says that the mandate of the CRIC is to look at the government position paper alongside the Professor Prempeh Constitutional Review Committee's report. So, already there is a conflict there as to exactly what it is,” he said.

He stressed, however, that the question of the committee’s mandate should not prevent it from engaging stakeholders and resolving outstanding disagreements before drafting the amendment bills.

Dr Asante disclosed that stakeholders had petitioned President John Mahama, asking the Presidency to provide further direction if CRIC considered its appointment letter too restrictive to allow for broader engagement.

“We have petitioned the President that if the CRIC feels constrained by their appointment letters, then the Presidency should direct them accordingly to make sure that they engage all the various stakeholders who have put forward counter-proposals,” he said.

He maintained that meaningful stakeholder engagement and consensus-building would be crucial to ensuring that the constitutional reform process is broadly accepted by Ghanaians.

The CRIC, or Constitution Review Implementation Committee, is expected to play a central role in translating agreed proposals from the constitutional review process into legislation, including separate amendment bills for entrenched and non-entrenched provisions of the 1992 Constitution.