“AG’s Office, Ministry of Justice Inseperable”

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday February 2, 2011.
It appears the clamour to decouple or separate the Attorney General’s Department from the Ministry of Justice may not be feasible after all.

The issue of whether or not the AG’s office should be separated from the Minister of Justice was hotly debated in the run up to the 2008 general elections, with the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Presidential Candidate, Dr. Paa Kwesi Ndum pledging to separate the two offices if elected as President.

The members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the time were the most vocal and even went a step further to incorporate the issue in their manifesto for the 2008 election dubbed, “A better Ghana: Investing in people, jobs and the economy.”

On page 33 of the manifesto under sub-topic “Law and Justice”, the NDC promised to “separate the Attorney General’s Department from the Ministry of Justice to promote greater efficiency and better transparency in the administration of justice.”

Last Wednesday in Accra, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a public policy think-tank, as part of the efforts to make inputs into the ongoing Constitutional Review process, organized a roundtable discussion on the much-talked about topic: “The decoupling of the Office of the Attorney General and that of the Minister of Justice.”

The forum was attended by distinguished lawyers and academicians with some former Attorneys General in attendance but the paper was delivered by Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, a renowned Criminologist and Lawyer.

At the forum it was glaringly obvious that all participants who got the opportunity to make contributions were against the decoupling of the two offices.

They were all of the view that instead of pushing for amendment to decouple the AG’s office and that of the Minister of Justice, the AG’s Office and other institutions such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), now Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) should rather be resourced and empowered adequately to do the job.

Prof. Attafuah, who set the tone said, “The proposed constitutional amendment to decouple the AG’s Office and that of the Minister of Justice is wholly unnecessary; it is an unnecessary but costly excursion into tinkering with the fundamental law of the land, devoid of a reasonable assurance that it will achieve what is desired. We should drop it.”

He said the issue of decoupling the two offices has dominated because of a focus of “winning prosecutions against political opponents as a class of suspected criminals and a focus on a small but highly important class of offences, namely corruption, stealing, misappropriation of public funds and willfully causing financial loss to the state.”

He noted: “The call for decoupling is essentially a response to the growing perception of politicization of prosecutions, the need to engineer our prosecution system to higher levels of efficiency and independent, and the desire to achieve more successful prosecutions, particularly of corrupt public officers and drug dealers.”

Prof. Attafuah said those clamouring for the move base their arguments on the independence of the prosecution system, anti-corruption drive and rule of law and transparency, saying if the goal of decoupling is considered highly desirable, it can be achieved without amending the Constitution.”

He said “we can achieve the goals of independence and efficiency if the AG delegates his prosecutorial powers through a simple Act of Parliament to an independent public prosecutor. The independent prosecutor can mount all prosecutions on behalf of the AG but without the daily superintendence of the AG.”

During an open forum moderated by former Attorney General Joe Ghartey, Ebo Barton-Oduro, the current Deputy Attorney General said even with an independent prosecutorial service, the nation can still have problems and cited the South African example to buttress his point.

Nii Ayikoi Otoo, a former Attorney General said “there is no need for anybody to add what we already have. We may put it in our manifesto but the reality on the ground is that it would not work.”

Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah, another former Attorney General traced the historical background of the position of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, disclosing that “in terms of practice a Minister in Article 88 of the Constitution means a Minister of Justice.”

Professor Nii Ashie Kotey, a former Acting Director of the Ghana Law School said “there is nothing to do with decoupling the office of the Minister of Justice from the Office of the AG. If we are not careful we will offend Article 88.”

Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, a lawyer and gender activist said “we need strong prosecutorial system to work for majority of Ghanaians. A strong, independent and well-resourced AG’s Department would bring hope to everybody.”

Gloria Akuffo, a former Deputy AG said the dualization of the position has consistently been rejected by previous systems saying “taking the prosecutorial powers of the AG cannot be the issue. We should rather strengthen anti-corruption and other related institutions that already exist.”

Gertrude Aikins, the current Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) bemoaned the undue politicization of the AG’s Department, noting, “There is too much interference. They should allow the technocrats to do their work.”

Kwame Jantuah, a leading member of the CPP, said there is no political will to ensure that anti-corruption institutions are strengthened to become effective.

Justice VCRAC Crabbe, an eminent jurist, observed that there are several provisions in the constitution that have not been completely exhausted in addressing the issue.