we shall be discussing constitutionality constitutionalism constitutionalism now the first point of call is to make it clear that constitutionalism is not the same as government by a constitution as a matter of fact you can even have a government that has a constitution that will not have constitutionalism in that particular legal system again constitutionalism is not the same as government governing according to democratic principles democracy is different from constitutionalism so the question is what then is constitutionalism if we are saying constitutionalism is not the same as democracy and it's also not the same as governments being governed by the constitution then what is positionality refer to authoritative statements about conventionalism by two scholars the first is secure in his book a handbook of the constitutional law of ghana and its history christ edition page 15 and this is what the learning author says and i'm quoting constitutional means government according to predetermined rules which restrain or limit governmental activity these include the existence of rules prior to governmental action and not ruled by personal fiats these rules must be designed to effectively restrain or put bricks on governmental activity very strange maybe institutional procedural or substantive for constitutionalism to prevail the rules putting the restraints on governmental activity must be made legal that is a mechanism which should be provided in the constitution for policing them then the court ends again i will refer to sir cooper comado once again in his article constitutionalism liberties and developments this has been published in the university of ghana 1980 and this is what the leonard order says in the seminar article [Music] and i quote the key concern of constitutionalism is the division of governmental power in such a way that there is an effective restraint on the arbitrariness inherent in power so that the individual society will be the beneficiary such a system of restraints may be embodied partly in the written documents and partly left to be enforced by the force of tradition but it is important that these restraints be legal that the government should restraint be under law and does these restraints be enforceable before an independent body of habitats in the events of a claim by an individual of their violation separation of powers rule of law judicial review to mention only a few of the key ideas which constitutes the constitutional lawyers merchandise are only a breakdown into smaller proportions of the basic idea of constitutionalism could ends finally i'll refer to the words of carl friedrich f-r-e-d-r-i-c-h in his book constitutional government and democracy and this is what he also says and that quotes and he's referring to constitutionalism and quoting it embodies the simple proposition that the government is a set of activities organized by and operated on behalf of the people but subject to a series of restraints which attempt to ensure that the power which is needed for some governments is not abused by those who are called upon to do the government could end now what is common in all these three definitions myself and kyle frederick you realize that in all the definitions the focus is that there must be some restraints some limitations placed on the exercise of governmental power so all the three definitions are all to the effect that before governmental power is exercised there must be some restraints or limitations placed on the exercise of governmental power in other words there must be some predetermined rules that will destroy or limit governmental powers that is what we mean by constitutionalism if constitutionalism is governed according to predetermined limitations or restraints our next question will be how should these restraints be made effective how should the restraints be made effective the first thing to point out is that the existence of a written constitution it becomes very relevant and important because when you have a written constitution when you have a constitution that is written that document may set out the limits and the restraints that is reporting place on the government this point has been made by chief justice martial in the famous u.s apron court case of marble and madison we're the leader chief justice marshall mentioned that listing of the limitations on governments in the written constitution is essential for us to know what the limits of those governments are so that if they embark on excursions outside the limits they can be easily changed permits me to quote the expressways of jesus's master that's what he says in maybe a medicine that the powers of the legislature are defined and limited and as those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten the constitution is written the court ends again the powers of the legislature are defined and limited and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten the confusion is written quote ends therefore if you are saying conditionalism is government according to predetermined limitations how can we make these restraints effective the first means of making them effective is to write them down is to have a written constitution because as chief as martial has said if we write those limitations down they will prevent people from forgetting them or getting them mistaken and then that is why we say that so that if people now go beyond the limits they can be checked so we are saying there must always be predetermined limitations on the exercise of governmental power and in answering the question as to how we can make these restraints effective we have noted that one key means is by ensuring that these limits are defined in the written law and we have referred to the word of chief justice martial so that we prevent people from forgetting these limits so that when they go beyond the limits we can check them it must be mentioned at this point that in order to make the restraints effective there are some countries that leave this world into the hands of the judiciary and independent judiciary that would be the judiciary will be the ones that will make sure that people don't go beyond the confines of the limits that have been confined on them by the constitution but it must be mentioned that there is no uniformity in practice about whether this act of checking the restraints there's no uniformity in practice about whether it should be the role of the judiciary or it should be the role of the legislature or it should be the role of the executive or we should even leave them to determine for themselves there's no uniformity in practice in some jurisdictions you will see them placing this more into the hands of the judiciary which is actually very very effective and one of the means of ensuring that the powers of government are limited to demonstrate that if you have an independent judiciary which is immune from control of the executive and the legislature that judiciary can serve as an effective means of placing restraints on the exercise of their mental power but do not get me wrong i'm not saying that it is only the judiciary that has the role to ensure that limits are placed on the exercise of governmental power in professor tomorrow's article he says and i quote that there's however no uniformity in practice about whether the policing of the constitution should be performed by the judiciary or simply by hoping that the ordinance of governments will restrain themselves and keep within the boundaries of their constitutional powers perhaps the boldest one can get in this area is to accept that some countries rely on the judicial as well as the legislature to keep the boundaries of governmental power on the state while others leave everything entirely to the good sense of legislators i'll take the coach once again in accordance from sir commando's article titled constitutionalism civil liberties and developments published in the 1980 university of ghana london this is what he says and i'm quoting once again there is however no uniformity in practice about whether the policing of the constitution should be performed by the judiciary or simply by hoping that the organs of government will restrain themselves and keep within the boundaries of their constitutional powers perhaps the boldest one can get in this area is to assert that some countries rely on the judiciary as well as the legislature to keep the boundaries of governmental power undisturbed while others leave everything entirely to the good sense of legislators quote ends so that's why we are saying that as far as conditionalism is concerned we are talking about predetermined limitations and governmental power and these predetermined limitations on governmental power for these restraints to be effective we have mentioned that one of the means is to have a written constitution because as chief justice master has said in madrid and madison it is when you have limitations written in the constitution that is what makes people from forgetting to go beyond the limits another means of ensuring that people stay within the boundaries of their limits is when you have an independent judiciary because that independent judiciary are the ones that will hold the executive and the legislature in check when they are going beyond their functions and the limits of their powers but we have been quick to mention that it is not a matter of uniformity among countries that when it comes to how we will ensure that people stay within their limits we give everything to the judiciary because as we have seen in the accident like this already some countries may decide to leave the power of policing the constitution or checking the restraints some countries may leave the power for the judiciary others may leave it for the judiciary and then the executive judiciary and the legislature so we are only looking at means of making these restraints effective and we have mentioned that's one means of making this effective is by written constitution and that means it's also by having an independent tradition and i'm going to caution you to say that do not get me wrong in saying that every country must necessarily use these strengths again when you move ahead you rather than gamma in our constitutional framework we have given rules to the judiciary to perform to ensure that we have constitutionality we have given some rules to parliament to perform to ensure that we have positionality we have given some rules to the executives to perform so do not get me wrong and think that it is only the judiciary that has a role to play in ensuring that the restraints placed on governmental power are effective it is not only the judiciary but the judiciary is a key institution that will play a role in ensuring that we achieve concessionalism having gotten to this point i can now explain to you why we say that constitutionalism is not the same as government according to a constitution because now you know that constitutionalism rather refers to the limits or the restraints placed on governmental power so if you have a written constitution you have a democratic government but that constitution gives the government so much unlimited power they can pass laws to abuse people's fundamental human rights then you know that that government even though they have a constitution the government has given so much unlimited power and is abusing people's rights and in that instance you can say that we do not have constitutionalism in that system because there are no restraints laid on the exercise of that governmental power so so far we know to mean so far that we can adopt to ensure that the restraints plays on these governmental powers are effective one mechanism we can use to make the restraints effective is to have a written constitution another mechanism we can use to ensure that the restraints are effective is to have an independent judiciary again when you read say coffee commandos article titled constitutionalism civil liberties and development this is what he faced and i quote separation of powers rule of law judicial review to mention only a few of the key ideas which constitutes the constitutional noise merchandise are only a breakdown into smaller proportions of the basic idea of constitutionalism put ends so it means that in addition to having the written constitution in addition to having judicial independence separation of powers rule of law judicial review when you see these things manifested in a particular system they all constitute elements of consciousness because separation of powers is a mechanism we can use to ensure that there are restraints the restraints placed on the exercise of governmental power are effective because if you have the personal powers you would prevent the situation whereby one single person would have the power of making laws he had the power of of interpreting the laws he had the power of implementing them when that happens then the power can be abused so separation of powers is also another means that we can use to give strength to the restraints placed on governmental power in order to achieve constitutionalism rule of law that the law is supreme everybody might be subject to the rules of law there must be equality of the law this is another means that if it is applicable in the legal system it is going to help us achieve constitutionalism because it would ensure that the restraints placed on that mental power are effective and then we have judicial review judicial review of the courts let's say judicial review of the court to declare an enactment passed by parliament as unconstitutional it means that one parliament goes ahead to pass a law put a repugnant to the constitution who is going to check parliament to ensure that they don't go beyond the bounds of their limits the power of judicial review will ensure that the supreme court can declare certain activities at unconstitutional it means they are whipping the legislature back in line so that they will stay within their limits it means judicial review is also another mechanism we can use to strengthen the restraints placed on governmental power so if you have a question and they ask you what are the elements of concessionalism oh by what means can we achieve conditionalism elements having a written constitution is one judicial independence is one separation of powers is one rule of law is one judicial review is also one because these are all mechanisms we can use to ensure that the restraints placed on governmental power are effective not only this there must also be the respect for fundamental human rights if you have a country and people you're not respecting people's fundamental human rights then it means that there's no limits placed on the people accessing their mental power and so we do not have to study my body inside kofi kumar's book titled a handbook of the consciousness of ghana in his history the first edition page 17 this is what he says emma putin first for constitutionalism to prevail the constitution must guarantee not grants the rights of the people against government and their fellow citizens these rights must be justified there must especially be freedom of political activity freedom of speech and expression including the right to debate public issues free media the right to assemble protest and petition the governments equality and equal protection under the law and non-discrimination human rights constitutes the single most important to governmental power second there must be acceptance among the generality of a populist that the exercise of governmental power must be subject to limits the absence of this general acceptance will render paper limitations nothing but a blank check on the other hand where this acceptance is embodied in the public ethos the ground of public power which appears on the surface should be limitless will in practice be subjected to effective limitations then the court ends so he recognizes that for constitutionalism to prevail the constitution must guarantee the rights of people so respect for fundamental human rights is also an element of constitutionalism not that the constitution must guarantee the human rights and the rights might be sociable you must be enforceable in court of law there must be freedom of speech freedom of speech will ensure that governmental power there are restraints on it because if you go beyond the power then we can help people that will come and criticize you and whip you back in line then it makes a very interesting point that if you have all these limitations on paper but the people do not feel that they must go by these limitations then there will just be paper limitations so exactly recognizes that he mentions that we must have acceptance among the generality of the public that the exercise of their mental power must be subject to limits this way people who know that they must stay within the confines of the law so what we have discussed so far is to mention ways in which constitutionalism the restraints placed on governmental power we have identified ways in which we can have effective restraints and as mentioned in india self-configuring those book sites that these restraints placed on governmental power they may be institutional they may be positional and they may be subtensive they may be institutional they may be procedural or they may be substantive now what we have discussed so far is to assess the framework of the theoretical basis for constitutionalism we have defined it according to the scholars we have mentioned that constitutionalism is not synonymous to government by constitution so what it means is that even in the military regime you can still have consistency because if you have a military regime and then there are restraints placed on the mental power if it's a military regime and then before governmental power has excised their restraints and limitations that there is an independent judiciary in the military within that there is respect of fundamental human rights in the military with you that there is the rule of law in the military that the military recognizes the prison of powers then in that military we will have constitutionalism because before governmental power are exercised there will be some restraints meaning not anything at all that they can do so remember that concessionalism deals with the restraints placed on the exercise of governmental power now let us go ahead and discuss and find out how these limitations have played out in the case law so i would examine them another three different headings of the limitations you remember it has been mentioned self-confidence book recognizes that there can be the limitations can either be used now they may be posted around they may be substantive so i'll go ahead and discuss these limitations under institutional limitations and the procedural limitations and under substantive limitations we shall begin with the procedural limitations procedural limitations or procedural breaks and governmental power procedural diseases now for the procedural limitation we are saying that before governmental power is exercised there is a lay down procedure that has to be complied with that should serve as a break or a check on governmental power so for example if you look at article 78 of the 1992 constitution it says that ministers of states shall be appointed by the president with the power approval of parliament from among members of parliament all persons qualified to be elected as members of parliament except that the majority of members of ministers of states shall be appointed from among members of parliament now my focus here is ministers of states shall be appointed by the president with the prior approval of parliament there is a legal procedure so you can say that as a minute as a president you appoint your minister to serve you without any check without any limitations the limitation here the procedural limitation here is that you must seek the power approval of parliament this is a check a break a procedural break in the legal in the in the government machinery to prevent power from being concentrated in one person's hands then look at article one zero six plus three article one zero two plus three says that a bill affecting the institution of chieftains shall not be introduced in parliament without the proud reference to the national health of chiefs a bill affecting the institution of chief tensing shall not be introduced in parliament without prior reference to the national house of chiefs what is this saying this is a pre-determined procedure so that even though you can come and do what you want but you cannot just introduce a bill affecting chieftains unless there has been a power reference to the national house of chiefs it means that even though parliament has been given legislative power there is a predetermined procedure there is a predetermined limitation there are predetermined restraints on how they can pass laws that affects chieftains and over here you can make reference to the case of warren and ophuriata warwick and foreign 1959 ghana law reports 181 to 187 high court commercial then look at article 144 that deals with appointments on the chief justice after the rule for divorces that the chief justice shall appoint shall be appointed by the president acting in consultation with the council of thieves and with the approval of parliament look at the lay down procedure acting in consultation with the council of states and with the approval of parliament this is the legal procedure you must comply with this procedure you can't wake up one day and you say you've appointed a fig when nobody knows about it no we want to prevent that abuse so even though even though the president is giving the power to our points if we appoint somebody that person must have been approved by parliament so that if parliament does not approve of the appointment that is saving us as as a check on whoever you are points at the tip that is a procedural limitation now when you are points and the person is not doing your breathing can you wake up and just say that you want to remove the person from there in any way that you wish the procedure for it's also there 146 activity 156 if you read episode 146 it will tell you that if you want to remove a justice of the superior courts then first of all there must be a petition sent to the president for the removal of a superior project and then when that petition has been received then the president must refer it to the chief justice when the president refers him to the chief justice the chieftain shall now have to determine whether there's a permafrost he face if the chief doesn't determines that there's a permafrosting case then he shall set up a committee the committee shall consist of three justices of the superior courts or chairman of the original tribunal or booth and they shall be appointed by the judicial council and two other persons who are not members of the council of states nor members of parliament nor lawyers and who shall be appointed by the two justices and the advice of the judicial council of the council of this sorry so look at the procedure before you remove the supreme court justice there must be a petition given to the president the president will have to forward it to the chief justice the thief justice will have to establish that as a permanent faculty case when he establishes that there's a permafrosting case he has not from the committee look at the procedure it means that this is a proud and predetermined limitation is a predetermined procedural limitation on how you can exercise governmental power so it is important for you to note that internal in our constitution of ghana we have laid down some limitations in order to serve as breaks on governmental power on governmental power again beyond procedural limitations we can also look at substantive limitations subconscious limitations these are kind of limitations there are real actual limitations and they are placed on the exercise of legal powers substantive laws of the states what you know this about them is that they normally come in the form of prohibitions to say that you can't do this or they may come in the form of mandatory injunctions that you must do this so when we say they come in the form of prohibitions let us look at some examples another constitution execute three course one of the constitution i said the truth says that parliament shall have no power to pass to and not a law establishing a one-party thing this is an absolute prohibition it's a predetermined absolute restraint it's a predetermined absolute limitation on the exercise of governmental power so no matter what you come and do if you come to power and you have a parliament you shall have your power to and not allow to make ghana a one-party state this is an absolute prohibition and it falls under what we call substantive limitations take a look at article one plus two of the constitution it says the constitution shall be the supreme law of the land of ghana and any other law found to be inconsistent with any probation of the constitution suit to the extent of the inconsistency devoid what does it mean means that anytime you have a constitution and you have any law that turns out to be inconsistent it has been predetermined that that law what is found to be inconsistent it shall be void in other words nobody has a lot of power to pass any law that would be inconsistent with any probation of the constitution so you see it also comes in the form of a prohibition and then article 107 of the constitution what does it say the parliament shall have no power to pass any law to alter the decision or judgment of any court as between the parties subject to that decision or that means so if you go to court and i go to court with you and the court grants that meant in my favor parliament cannot pass any law that will have the effect of all three the decision or government of that force as between we the right of the party to that suit this is an absolute prohibition parliament you can't do it it's a subtentive limitation and it is in the form of a prohibition telling you what parliament cannot be against 107 b it says that parliament shall have no power to pass any law which operates retrospectively [Music] to impose any limitations or adversely affect the rights and liberties of any person or impose a budget obligation or liability on any person except in the case of the law passed under article 178 or 182 of this constitution [Music] and so if it comes to parliament passing another will have a proactive effect retrospective effect to impose any limitation on anybody the article 107 says parliament does not have that power this is also a substantive limitation i remember like i said the subconscious limitations they come in the form of prohibitions or mandatory injunctions what so so far the ones we've looked at and the article three was one under article 107. all of these are in the form of fourier business africa was one activity one zero this one you must do it you must do this so the law is placing an obligation mandatory obligation that you must do this look at article 92 clause 2 of the constitution it says the council of texas shall mix shall also meet if requested by the president parliament or not less than five members of the council it means as soon as the president's or parliament or none less than five members of the council requests they must definitely miss as council obtained then look at article 58 clause 1 it's also another form of a mandatory injunction it says the executive authority of ghana shall invest in the president and shall be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the constitution it is mandatory it shall be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the constitution mandate but you must you must exercise it in accordance with the provisions of the constitution then look at article 67 it says the president shout at the beginning of each session of parliament and before a resolution of parliament you shall deliver to parliament a message on the state of the nation it is mandatory you shall do this at the beginning of this and before a dissolution of parliament and then we also have institutional limitations these limitations are placed on the exercise of an institution powers by one institution and usually this institution is serving as a limitation or a check on the other institution so for institutional limitations they come in the form of separation of powers and checks and balances where one institution is serving as a check on the other institution the perfect example you can get is article 2 of the constitution what gives the judiciary the power of judicial review so that the judiciary can declare as not employed any action by the executive or the legislature which is found to be inconsistent with any probation of the constitution that is a clear institutional limitation again if you remember article 78 parliament is giving the power over them to approve of ministers appointed by the executive it is another clear case of an institutional limitation because parliament is serving as a check on another body another clear case is article 75 when the executive enters into a treaty under article 75 you must come and gain the ratification of parliament so parliament is serving as a check on the executive another one is article 181 if the president or the executive goes ahead and is going to take a loan or an international business transaction under article 181 parliament said at the check you must come and gain the prior approval of parliament so what we have done so far is to first define what constitutionalism is as a system of government where you have effective restraints placed on the exercise of governmental power as a defining constitutionalism we have gone ahead to look at the means of achieving the restraints based on governmental power you mentioned that one means of ensuring that the effectiveness dreams is to have a written constitution another means is to make sure that we have an independence judiciary we mentioned that the respect of fundamental human rights is also another means of ensuring that their restraints plays on the exercise of governmental power i mentioned that separation of powers is also another means of ensuring that they are effective with strings based on governmental power again we looked at the rule of law that it's also another means of ensuring that there are effective restraints based on governmental power and then we also look at the power of the court for judicial review that's the power of the court to review legislation by the executive or to review actions by the executive to make their same as unconstitutional it's also another means by which we can ensure that there are effective streams based on the exercise of governmental power we then took a look at the different means in which we can have these limitations we mentioned that these limitations can come in the form of procedural limitations they can come in in the form of substantive limitations and they can also come in the form of institutional limitations we have mentioned so far that their substantive limitations become in the form of either prohibitions or mandatory injunctions we've also mentioned that the procedural limitations would require a mandatory procedure to be exhausted before some governmental power the exercise and then we also look at institutional limitations which ensure that one institution says as a check on the other what we have to note at this point is that many a time you're gonna have one form of limitation or one form of limitation that is overlapping and falling into one more than one of these three limitations so for example article 78 of the constitution article 78 of the constitution we learned that it can come under the procedural limitation because a mandatory requires a particular procedure to be exhausted in the appointment of ministers of states that same article can fall under institutional limitation because for that same article we have a [Music] parliament as an institution that is serving as a check on another institution that is the executive as a matter of fact at 78 can even fall under substantive limitations because if you look at his language very well it has more or less been couched also in mandatory language it is mandatory requiring the president to appoint majority of his ministers from parliament so that is that is also in the form of a mandatory injunction that you must do this so all i'm trying to say is that we have looked at three different ways in which the limitations can arise procedural limitations subconscious limitation institutional limitation but i'm saying that you're gonna have a particular probation of the constitution which falls under more than one of these three limited limitations if you remember earlier in this lecture we mentioned when we referred to serco comados article titled constitutionalism civil liberties and development when we refer to that article we mentioned that the lenin author made a made a very strong point that there is no uniformity in practice about whether the policing of the constitution should be performed by the judiciary or simply by hoping that the organs of the government will restrain themselves and keep within the boundaries of their constitutional powers and he went ahead to mention that and i quote the boldest one can get in this area is to assess that some countries rely on the judiciary as well as the legislature to keep the boundaries of their mental power on the step while others leave everything entirely to the good sense of the legislatures so when i made this point when i referred to this point in self-conficomatos article i mentioned that the independent judiciary is one way and one mechanism we use to ensure that the restraints placed on governmental power are effective we mentioned that in some jurisdictions we don't leave it for the judiciary alone we also give some role to the legislature to perform as far as ensuring that the restraints placed on governmental power are effective now at this point that you now know what the situation pertains in ghana let me ask you what do you think would be the institutions that are playing a critical role in ensuring that the restraints placed on governmental power are effective in ghana would you say that the rule has been given to your judiciary alone do you think the executive has a role to play do you think parliament has a role to play now i think in ghana all the organs of government have a role to play because for example and article 2 of the constitution the judiciary is given the power of judicial review and on article 2 they can review acts of the executive to declare him as unconfused now as we saw in the case of mpp and attorney general certified december case where the judiciary declared the intended celebration of 35 december as a national holiday it was declared unconstitutional in ghana we've also seen the judiciary limiting the price of the legislature we've seen that in the case of mpp and igp we've seen that in the case of mexico and attending general we've seen that in the case of mpp and a.g they see my case in all of these cases we've seen how the judiciary can review conduct of the legislature recently we saw it in the case of mars in cable and attorney general where the courts declared provisions in the activity as unconstitutional those provisions that had created some nonverbal offenses they declared that as unconstitutional so therefore it means that in ghana the judiciary is playing a role in reviewing executive acts and the legislative acts but parliament also has a root to believe because we saw in article 78 that parliament is the one that will have to give the prague approval whenever the president appoints his ministers we also saw under article 75 and 181 that under 75 when the executive enters into treaties for it to be binding on ghana we must have ratification by parliament in accordance with article 75 we saw under article 181 that if the executive is going for a loan he must gain the proper approval of parliament or if he is entering into an international business transaction he must give the prior approval of parliament according to 181 so it means that the legislator also has a rule to play in checking the executive the executive also has a rule to play in checking the legislature for example and article 106 when the legislator passes a bill before the bill will come will become law it has to be assented to by the executive again the executive also checks the legislature for example if you look at article 71 that the salaries and allowances payable to the speaker of parliament those those salaries those salaries shall be determined by the president so you see that as far as ghana is concerned i think that we have witnessed constitutionalism pervading through the walls of the constitution we've seen how we have adopted several checks and we strength plays on the governmental power so that no matter who becomes the president you will find it difficult to live according to your whims and compresses you will have to control to these limitations and breaks in order to prevent the abuse of power this brings us to the end of our lecture on constitutionalism but remember it doesn't end over here when you read your cases like shall i be an attorney general look at how the court mentioned that the executive could not do whatever they want by the private citizens of the citizenship you will not see the word constitutionalism being mentioned in the case of an attorney general but at least when you read the dictum of hate from benjamin you realize that he was showing the limitations placed on the past of the executive of the nlc and that even though they were they were powerful they could not do they could not just take away a person's citizenship in the manner in which they so wish when you read it even though you may not say constitutionalism being mentioned whenever you see the thoughts leaning in figure of these limitations placed on governmental power they should know already that it is manifesting constitutionalism so even though we are ending our letter here when you read your constitution you see things that reflect procedures that must be exhausted before executive exercise and power they know we are afraid to procedural limitations and it's an aspect of constitutionalism and this is there to ensure that a governmental governmental power will not be abused we'll end our lecture here opening this knowledge thank you