Constitution Review Chair Explains Why Old Reports Could Not Be Recycled

Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh says Ghana’s recent political and constitutional experiences made it impossible to simply reuse earlier constitutional review proposals, citing events that transformed the context for reform.

In a JoyNews interview, the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) Chairman said the country has encountered situations that were not contemplated when earlier reviews were conducted. He pointed to Ghana experiencing two election petitions since previous reports were written, something the nation had never encountered before.

“We’ve had the death of a president in office and seen how succession works. We’ve experienced a hung Parliament,” Prof Prempeh explained. According to him, the removal of constitutional office holders and growing democratic tensions in the region further altered the context. Global democratic pressures also factored into the committee’s thinking.

“Democracy was not backsliding the way we’re seeing now. The region wasn’t experiencing this level of turbulence,” he said. These realities, Prof Prempeh noted, compelled the committee to rethink how the Constitution should respond to present day governance challenges. “You couldn’t just take a report off the shelf and say now is the moment,” he stated.

The chairman explained that the review evolved into an extensive national exercise after initial timelines proved unrealistic. Speaking on JoyNews, Prof Prempeh said the committee was inaugurated on January 29 with an expectation of completing its work within months. He revealed that the first timeline he heard was about three months, which the committee immediately rejected as impossible. Even an extended seven month window later turned out to be overly optimistic.

He explained that the committee was required to build on earlier constitutional review efforts rather than start afresh. Prof Prempeh described the task as being “essentially the last lap of a relay,” noting that the work examined previous reports, including those by Professor Albert Fiadjoe and Justice Clara Kasser Tee, alongside Ghana’s constitutional history.

However, Prof Prempeh stressed that the mandate went beyond desk research. The committee was asked to return to Ghanaians to see whether views expressed in 2011 still reflected how people think today. According to him, demographic changes, the rise of social media, and new civic experiences made fresh engagement unavoidable.

“A lot has changed. We’ve moved from millennials to Gen Z, and citizens now engage very differently,” Prof Prempeh said. The committee conducted nationwide consultations, allowing individuals, civil society groups, professional bodies, political actors and traditional authorities to contribute meaningfully to the review.

The committee’s recommendations touched on several major governance reforms. Among them are proposals to separate the executive from the legislature to reduce conflicts of interest, strengthen accountability and improve parliamentary oversight. The report proposes extending presidential and parliamentary terms from four years to five, arguing that the current term is too short and below global norms.

Other recommendations include establishing a definite, legally bounded campaign season to curb perpetual electioneering, creating an Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission to handle prosecutions, and lowering the presidential age limit from 40 to 30 years. The committee also proposed constitutionalizing the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).

Former Deputy General Secretary for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho, has admonished Professor Prempeh to stop speaking about the committee’s work. In a post shared via X, Anyidoho argued that continued media engagements make the chairman sound partisan and could destroy his own work. He said the government’s white paper should speak for itself.

“If you don’t keep quiet and continue talking ‘bla bla bla’, you will destroy your own work ooo HKP. You have finished your work; allow the Government’s White Paper to speak for itself,” Anyidoho wrote. He cited Professor Fiadjoe’s silence after chairing the First Constitutional Review Committee as a yardstick for the current chairman to follow. “The more you speak; the more you will sound like a very partisan politician,” he added in his Christmas message.

The Constitutional Review Committee presented its report to President Mahama on December 22. The committee comprised Justice Sophia Akuffo Adinyira, a retired Supreme Court Justice; Professor Kwame Karikari; former Electoral Commission Chairperson Charlotte Osei; Dr Godwin Djokoto; Ibrahim Tanko Amidu; Dr Esi Ansah; and Dr Rainer Akumperigeya.

President Mahama described many of the recommendations as “quite revolutionary” and “quite radical” but stressed they are in the interest of deepening Ghana’s democracy, especially at a time of democratic backsliding in the sub region. He assured that the report would be implemented in a bipartisan manner and announced that an implementation committee would be set up early next year.