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The vice president, Mr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has, with the agreement of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, created an investigative commission to investigate the violence that occurred during the violence. 39, by-election in the constituency of Ayawaso West Wuogon on January 31, 2019.
Judge Emile Short, chairman of the commission, is composed of four members. Professor Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu and Patrick K. Acheampong are members.
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A former dean of the Faculty of Law of the Institute of Management and Public Administration of Ghana (GIMPA) and a private lawyer, Mr. Ernest Kofi Abotsi, is the secretary of the commission.
Terms of reference
A statement signed and published by the Director of Communications of the Presidency, Mr. Eugene Arhin, yesterday clearly stated the mandate of the commission.
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These include conducting an exhaustive, faithful and impartial investigation into the circumstances and establishing the facts that led to the events and violence badociated with the course of the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election; identify anyone responsible or involved in the events, violence and related injuries; investigate any matter that it considers incidental or reasonably related to the causes of the events and the related violence and injury; submit its report to the President within one month, indicating the reasons for its conclusions and recommendations, including the appropriate sanctions, if any.
Profile of the members of the commission
Judge Emile Short is a retired judge and scholar, as well as the first commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
Previously, he had been a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and had also lectured at Middlebad Polytechnic in London (United Kingdom).
He had also been a consultant for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Commonwealth Secretariat in London and the Carter Center in the United States.
Judge Emile Short was appointed Commissioner of the CHRAJ at the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1993 by President Jerry John Rawlings. Prior to working with CHRAJ, he ran a law firm.
In 2004, he permanently left his post at CHRAJ to become ad litem judge at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, after being elected to the post by the UN General Assembly.
It was during the prosecution of the perpetrators of war crimes in Rwanda. He returned to the CHRAJ in August 2009 and retired in December 2010.
Mensa-Bonsu
Teacher. Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu is Director of the Legon Center for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD).
She was a lecturer at the University of Ghana's Faculty of Law in 1985 and rose to become a full professor in 2002.
In 2003, she was elected a member of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Mensa-Bonsu has participated in numerous high-level national and international missions.
She has served on the Legal Committee of the Ghana National Commission on Children; represented Ghana at the Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts on the Draft African Charter of the Rights of the Child; member of the President's Committee on the Review of Education Reforms, the National Reconciliation Commission and the Ghana Police Council.
Mensa-Bonsu has been nominated as ECOWAS nominee to the International Technical Advisory Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia; Vice-Chair of the ECOWAS Working Group on the Harmonization of Business Law in Non-OHADA States; member of the OAU Committee of Eminent Jurists on the Lockerbie case and of the AU Committee of Eminent Jurists on the Hissène Habré case.
She was appointed Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for the Rule of Law at the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) with the rank of Deputy Secretary General in 2007.
Mr. Acheampong
Mr. Acheampong is a lawyer and former Inspector General of Police (IGP).
In the Ghana police, he first served as a prosecutor in the courts in Accra from September 1976.
He was then appointed executive secretary of the IGP at the Ghana Police Headquarters in June 1979.
At the time of the PNDC, he became Deputy Special Prosecutor of the Office of the Special Prosecutor of the National Public Courts of Ghana, a position he held until June 1986.
He also worked at the National Police Headquarters as Deputy Commissioner for Administration.
In September 1998, he was appointed commander of the Ghana Police College and is credited with supervising the reorganization and restructuring of the college.
He became director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in February 2001. It was during his tenure that the murderer, Charles Quansah, was arrested.
In August 2002, he became deputy PGI (Operations) and also served as interim chairman of the National Elections Task Force to oversee the security measures taken for the 2004 presidential and legislative elections in Ghana in December 2004.
On March 25, 2005, at the age of 54, he was appointed IGP by the then President, John Agyekum Kufuor.
Mr. Acheampong retired from the Ghana Police Service in January 2009.
Mr. Ernest Kofi Abotsi
Mr. Abotsi holds a Master of Law degree and has extensive experience in corporate and commercial law, including legal badet management, securities and stock restructuring, and oil and gas.
He is a partner at Axis Legal and a former dean of the GIMPA Law School.
General Tollé
The violence that characterized the elections in Ayawaso West Wuogon sparked a public outcry.
At least 18 people were injured, some critically, when masked men suspected of belonging to National Security fired on supporters of Democratic National Congress (NDC) candidate Mr. Delali Kwasi Brempong, in his residence in Bawaleshie.
The NDC MP for Ningo-Prampram, Samuel Nartey George, was also reportedly badaulted by members of the security forces.
Since the incident, organizations such as the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), the Coalition of National Election Observers (CODEO), the CHRAJ, as well as many people, have been involved in the event. condemned, describing it as an attack on the image of Ghana's democracy.
They therefore called on the president to open an investigation into the brutality and to engage the perpetrators.
What the Constitution says
Under Article 278 (1) of the 1992 Constitution, the President, subject to a constitutional instrument, may appoint a commission of inquiry on any matter of public interest in which:
(a) the president is satisfied that an investigating board should be appointed, or
b) the State Council indicates that it is in the public interest to do so, or
c) Parliament requests, by resolution, that an inquiry commission be appointed to investigate all matters specified in the resolution as being in the public interest.
Clause (3) of Article 278 states that the chairman of an inquiry commission must be a superior court judge or a person entitled to be appointed judge of a superior court , or a person who has served in this capacity as a justice of the peace the superior court or a person with special qualifications or knowledge with respect to the case being investigated.
Article 279 states that an investigating commission enjoys the powers, rights and privileges of a high court. This means that he can compel witnesses to appear and examine them. It may also require the production of documents.
In addition, section 280 (1) directs an inquiry commission to conduct a full, faithful and impartial inquiry into any matter entrusted to it. His report on the outcome of the investigation should be written and include the reasons that led to the conclusions set out in the report.
Clause 2 of Article 280 states that any finding, including unfavorable, is considered a judgment of the High Court which can be challenged only by appeal to the Court of Appeal and ultimately to the Supreme Court. Short.
Under Article 280 (3), the chairman shall ensure that the report of an inquiry committee and a white paper are published within six months.
Clause 4 of article 280 stipulates that the president must give reasons for his decision if the report of the commission of inquiry is not to be published.
Views of the lawyers
Commenting on the appointment of the commission, GBA President Tony Forson described the decision as a good thing.
He was particularly pleased with the caliber of the members of the commission.
"This shows that the government has listened to the concerns of the people, but we still deplore the scourge of Ghana's democratic competences," he said.
A private legal practitioner, Mr. Martin Kpebu, said the inquiry commission was a step in the right direction, as the violence in Ayawaso West Wuogon had shocked the conscience of the nation.
However, he called on Ghanaians to put pressure on the government to implement the commission's recommendations.
"If the commission says that there should be prosecution, then the prosecution should be initiated," he said.
Mr. John Akparobo Ndebugre, a private lawyer from Zebilla, in the Far East region, said investigative committees were not useful tools for dealing with wrongdoing in the Far East. the society.
At best, he said that they can be described as red herrings.
He added that the perpetrators of these acts of violence were well-known personalities because the Minister of State for National Security admitted to having sent him to participate in the operations.
He said these people should be arrested and prosecuted.
The inquiry commission that was put in place, he said, is composed of respectable and reputable people who would do a good job but wondered if their report would not have gone under the carpet of the president. .
According to article 278 of the Constitution, which empowers the president to appoint an inquiry commission, the persons appearing before the commission are witnesses and not suspects who claim that these witnesses are supposed to help the commission with information and in the normal course of events. such witnesses are immune from prosecution.
He explained that it also provides that when the board makes unfavorable findings against an individual, the latter is found guilty by a high court, which makes any recommendation of the court difficult. part of an investigation board to base the lawsuits as it will be considered a dual criminality. .
He asked, "Do you see why the prosecution of the witnesses who appeared before the Wuaku, Judgment Debt and Golden Jubilee investigation panels failed?"
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