Insulate AG and ensure its independence – Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu
“If the Attorney-General is a Minister in a ruling party’s government, certainly, human as he is, he would intend to treat his colleague ministers with skirt-blouse, and only go after opposition elements and former Ministers.
The Majority leader and Member of Parliament for Suame, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has said that the Office of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice needs to be made independent.
Speaking at a public lecture hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), he explained that the constitutional provision (per Article 88) that allows a President to appoint the Attorney-General creates the tendency for the office to be used for selective prosecutions.
“If the Attorney-General is a Minister in a ruling party’s government, certainly, human as he is, he would intend to treat his colleague ministers with skirt-blouse, and only go after opposition elements and former Ministers. That’s what we have,” he said.
He rather proposes that the powers of the Attorney-General should be made parallel with that of the Chief Justice or of a Supreme Court judge, and excluded from presidential appointment.
“It is proper and prudent to insulate the Attorney-General and assure his independence. For instance, the status of the Attorney-General could be made equivalent to the Chief Justice, or at least a Justice of the Supreme Court. He must not be a Minister of State appointed by a President. By that he would traverse several administrations, his financial autonomy will be guaranteed, and then shall we witness the demonstrable prowess of an Attorney-General, an amendment to article 88 is required.”
He further describes the constitution, as creating somewhat of a monarch out of the President per the provisions on powers granted to the President to appoint persons into public office.
“All appointments into the public services, are at the instance of the President. That is captured in Article 195. Indeed any President appoints more than 5000 officers into public office, we are still counting, this certainly is a monarch that the constitution has created. The rest of us hold him in all, and if and when he strays, it is difficult to talk straight to him. This arrangement needs to be revisited. It cannot be good for the growth of democracy," he said.
The lecture was on the topic, ‘Constitutional Review; the Perspective of a legislator.’