Our democracy has changed, Constitution must respond – Prof H. Prempeh

Ghana’s democracy has undergone major changes since 2011, making constitutional reforms unavoidable, Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh has said.

The Chair of the Constitution Review Committee explained that several politically and economically significant developments had occurred since the country’s last major constitutional review, demanding a fresh national conversation.

“Between 2011 and now, a lot of water has gone under the bridge,” Prof Prempeh said on Newsfile on Saturday. “At the time of the first report, we had not experienced a single election petition. Since then, we have had two.”

He pointed to Ghana’s experience of a sitting president dying in office, an event that triggered constitutional succession processes for the first time.

“We’ve had that experience, and these are constitutionally significant developments,” he noted.

Prof Prempeh also referenced the country’s first hung parliament in 2021, describing it as a defining moment with implications for governance. “We have since had one, and how it affects governance is something we must seriously consider,” he said.

On the economic front, he said Ghana’s recent sovereign debt crisis introduced new realities the framers of earlier constitutional provisions did not anticipate.

“We have never experienced sovereign bankruptcy. We’ve had one, and there are provisions on financing the constitution that are clearly impacted by that experience,” he explained.

Beyond Ghana, Prof Prempeh drew attention to instability in the sub-region, citing the resurgence of military takeovers.

“The return of coups d’état is not abstract. If you follow youth reactions, democracy is on the ropes again in parts of the region,” he said, adding that concerns about democratic backsliding could not be ignored.

He stressed that generational shifts had also transformed civic engagement.

“When the earlier report came, we were talking about millennials. Today, it’s Gen Z—citizen activists using social media in very different ways,” Prof Prempeh said.

According to him, these realities informed the committee’s work and its call for broad public engagement, including a national constitutional conference.

The committee, appointed by President John Dramani Mahama in January, has since submitted its recommendations to government, including a proposal to extend the presidential term from four to five years.