Charlotte Osei urges careful, balanced approach to constitutional reforms

Lawyer and former Chair of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, has called for restraint and thoughtful balance in Ghana’s ongoing constitutional reform process, warning that attempts to fix existing challenges should not give rise to new ones.

She made the remarks on Newsfile on JoyNews on Saturday, December 27, in the wake of the submission of the Constitution Review Committee’s (CRC) final report to President John Dramani Mahama on Monday, December 22.

The CRC report contains far-reaching recommendations, including the separation of the executive from the legislature, a clear reaffirmation that Ghana’s Constitution does not permit a third presidential term, and a proposal to extend the presidential term from four to five years.

Speaking on the programme, Ms Osei, who served as a member of the CRC, shed light on the committee’s methodical and consultative work.

“We have a document of about a hundred pages in which we examined, clause by clause, all the recommendations previously made. We recorded our own assessments in a separate column and began with the history, while also engaging the public to obtain feedback and decide whether to follow the existing recommendations or chart a new path,” she explained.

She singled out Article 71, which governs the remuneration of public officeholders, as one of the most sensitive issues the committee had to confront.

“This issue has appeared in every previous report. We decided to adopt a holistic approach through a one-stop Public Emoluments Commission, such as the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission. This allows us to deal with ex gratia payments and related matters in a fair and comprehensive way, rather than abolishing systems without offering workable alternatives,” she said.

Ms Osei stressed that fairness across the board was central to the committee’s thinking, covering members of parliament, the judiciary and the executive.

“It is not just a matter of picking one aspect and saying ‘scrap it.’ When you remove an existing arrangement, what replaces it? We were very mindful not to create problems while trying to solve existing problems. If we do not have the expertise to set emoluments ourselves, it is logical to leave that to the experts,” she noted.

She further reflected on past constitutional and local government reforms, observing that review commissions often struggle to design solutions that endure, reinforcing the need for caution and depth in the current reform process.