Speakers at a high level public forum on the dangers of constitutional review have asked parliament not to go ahead with the consideration of the constitutional amendment bill currently before the house, as the amendments in their current forms, will not be beneficial to the country’s democracy.

The panelists at the forum, organized by Imani Ghana and #1Simplestep, with support from the Hans Seidel Foundation, argued that the white paper presented by government which is the basis for the drafting of the bill, contains provisions that would impact negatively on the democracy of the country in due course.

The bill for instance, changes 34 entrenched provisions of the 1992 Constitution and inserts seven new entrenched provisions which cover 10 different chapters of the Constitution in one amendment thereby not allowing for individual provisions to be amended separately.

Samson Lardy Anyenini, a lawyer and broadcast Journalist, said although the white paper claims to have accepted over 90 percent of the recommendations made by the commission set up to review the Constitution, it left out the most important aspects that would foster the country’s democracy.

He said recommendations such as the reduction of the time the police can hold a suspect without charge, decoupling the Attorney General (AG) from the prosecutions aspect of the business of that ministry and the recommendation to give citizens the power to vote into office district chief executives, were rejected by government and belittles the citizens and organizations whose views were sought in the review process.

“The white paper should have no place as far as the recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission are concerned; it is totally misplaced and the white paper ought to be rejected,” he said.

Another issue was the risk of political control in the amendment process which had been driven from the beginning by the executive.

Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, Professor of Law, noted that it was inappropriate for the president to initiate the process and drive the agenda for provisions in the Constitution to be amended because he (president) alone in a political system, has the resources that can be abused.

He said, “We have seen examples of the outcomes of situations where presidents in Africa have initiated constitutional reviews that did not favour the citizens.”

Prof. Prempeh said constitutional amendment is a national project that should not be left for only political parties to drive the agenda, and therefore called on the citizenry to be interested in the process and hold the various institutions accountable.

Lawyer Kwame Akuffo although disagreed to the earlier submission that the prosecution role of the AG should be separated from the ministry for national security reasons, he pointed out that the Constitution does not mandate the president to initiate any amendments.

For him, the Constitution should be respected by going according to the process set up by that document.

“For a constitutional amendment to be valid, it must be done with the process and directions set up by the Constitution,” he said.

Nana Yaa Ofori-Atta, CEO of the Legacy Project, called on parliament to take a critical look at the provisions in the bill, considering the issues raised and inputs from the citizens, before it proceeds with the process of passing the bill.

She said parliament has the responsibility of ensuring that the provisions in the bill currently before it reflect what the citizens want and how they want to be governed and not to rely on a white paper issued by government.

“There is no emergency so we need to look at the provisions carefully before passing it,” she admonished.