There must be a review of the 1992 Constitution that takes away the President’s power to appoint the Inspector General of Police and the Chief Justice, the first ever chair of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Emile Francis Short, has suggested.
Over the years, the appointment of the IGP has been done by presidents but Mr Short believes it does not promote democracy and prevents IGPs in office from being objective, especially on politically-related crimes.
For him, “that is a very problematic issue because you find that the IGP and the police are not able to deal with political [crimes], adding: “For example when it comes to demonstrations or activities of political parties, it seems to many people that the police are not able to act in an objective manner because they are always looking at the back of their shoulders to determine whether they might offend the sitting government or not.”
He was speaking at a forum organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) on the theme: “Winner-Takes-All Politics in Ghana: The Case for a Review of the Appointing Powers of the President”.
In his closing remarks at the programme held in Accra on Wednesday, June 21, Mr Short emphasised that the appointment of the IGP by the president “is one provision that I think we should do away with; the president appointing the IGP, it really doesn’t promote our democracy”.
“Why should the president have a hand in appointing the IGP? What has that got to do with running a government? The president should appoint his ministers and leave the other institutions to participate in the appointment of the IGP as well as Chief Justice and so on,” he underscored.
Mr Short charged government to execute the constitution amendment process which has been halted.
“The current government must kick start the amendment of the constitutional review process which has been stalled,” he said.
Source:Ghana/AccraFM.com
