Let’s halt this constitutional anomaly!
The Constitution of every country prescribes the legal code by which the people should be governed within the wider framework of the legal-rational order, and the Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land.
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Unfortunately for Ghana, the 1992 Constitution bleeds internally.
There are two articles in the 1992 Constitution, articles 17 and 71, which stand in contradiction to each other.
The law is that when an inferior law contradicts the Constitution, the inferior law must give way to the supreme law of the land, that is the Constitution.
However, what happens when two articles within the Constitution conflict?
The people who are adversely affected by such Constitutional internal bleeding can elect to change the Constitution altogether or to amend it comprehensively.
Article 17 of the 1992 Constitution talks of equality and freedom from discrimination.
Section 1 to 2 states: “All persons must be equal before the law.
A person shall not be discriminated against on grounds of gender, race, colour, ethnic origin, religion, creed, social or economic status.”
Section 3 explains discrimination thus, for this article, “to discriminate” means to give different treatment to different persons attributable only or mainly to their respective description by race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, gender, occupation religion or creed.
Whereby people of one description are subjected to restrictions to which persons of another description are not subject to; or granted privileges which are not granted to persons of another description.
Model
Ideally, this is how a perfect model of the legal-rational order should be fashioned.
However, article 71 makes nonsense of all the provisions of Article 17 of the Constitution.
On the face of it, article 71 looks harmless.
It only talks of the “determination of certain emoluments”.
Why should every citizen, be it the president or whoever, not be subject to the same body that determines the salary structure of everybody within the body politic?
In compliance with articles 71(1) and (2) of the 1992 Constitution, which prescribes the appointment of a committee by the president on the advice of the Council of State to determine the emolument of certain office holders in the country, described as Constitutional office holders, I went ahead to take a cursory look at the recommendations of the Chinery-Hesse Committee report of December 2008.
Gap
The gigantic emoluments gap created by that report between those described as “Constitutional office holders” and the rest of us makes George Orwell’s Animal Farm a “child’s play”.
To say the least, the emoluments prescribed by the Chinery-Hesse Committee report, which determined the emoluments of the president, the vice president, chairman and members of the Council of State, etc., are so outrageous and discriminating that Section 17 of the 1992 Constitution becomes just cosmetic in the Constitution.
With any amendment, article 71 of the Constitution must go!
Those on the verge of retirement, who have served all their lives, weep, while those who only pay their dues to the country for eight years or less take so much of the resources of this country home!
No doubt everybody wants to get into politics now, even at the district assembly level.
Why can’t our politicians be a bit altruistic, and why do they always consider their personal well-being above everybody else’s?
Pepe of Uruguay used a Beetle car, had a three-legged dog as a pet and donated half of his salary to charity.
At least politicians should be a little considerate to the rest of the masses whose jobs also matter.
The irony of the situation in Ghana is that those who are well looked after by the State are those who also rob the country.
So, they should not be assisted to continue to milk this country while on the verge of retirement.
The writer is a political scientist/lawyer.
E-mail: [email protected]
