Welcome to our constitutional law two class so so far we have been discussing the evolution the historical evolution of Ghana's Constitution uh so the machinery for governance of the modern political uh entity or the modern poity which we call Ghana how has it uh gone through uh various phases of time uh various uh social economic and political interactions now we have been going through this uh bit and bits over the past two lectures or three and the point has made that it is important for us to understand appreciate and explore our past if I say our past in terms of how our constitutional development has been that is crucial for understanding the current contion Arrangements because the constition arrangements that we have did not just draw from the sky or they just didn't occur by themselves uh most of the things that we have have a certain story around it and that story is that what has necessitated that we look at the various historic Epoch and then the various uh know constitutional experiments that we have had to engage in as a people so on that note we have been looking at the story how it has evolve up to attainment of Independence so we saw in our previous class how uh the 19 uh I think 48 uh know unrest the disturbances and all that foel so many uh uh you know agitations and compromises how to be struck and the various know commissions which were set up resulting in major constitutional Arrangement and also the emergence of the very first political uh party the ugcc United good convention and uh how the CPP came out of it and just at the time of uh uh know attaining dependence various uh concerns began to uh come up particularly uh those who have not been uh parts of the mainstream Colonial Administration for a long time and they they've had their own Arrangements like the Asanti people and know those who were under the the they defeated the German colonial power that is the how you call the transland and all those things uh resulted in a very unique negotiated Constitution so that is what uh we have manifesting in the independence uh constitution of 1957 uh if you like we have made uh the point that uh that contion came about as a result of a an order in council uh know with Independence the ACT which uh was passed under the opes of the Metropolitan Colonial uh Power as it were so let us uh keep that uh uh uh in mind so just a few uh things to highlight and if you want to have a a refill of the original test of the 1952 sorry 1957 or Independence Constitution uh we have Professor jand Griffiths uh you call the g& we have know two volumes which has collected some of these historical documents for ease of uh know assessment or reference so it's something that you can reach out for in order to have a real feel of how the Constitution uh has evolved or or has been you can just flip through the pages to get the but for now it suffices to say that the independent contion uh sought to provide a good cuse with full responsible status within the British Comm World of Nations so the British Comm Comm of Nations simply refers to uh Alliance or League of colonies that were held by Britain and have now attained political Independence and because of their background with the former power Great Britain and the various countries having be roted by one foral power they definitely have a shared traditions and all that that is why they' organized themselves into the common World of Nations so British Comm that is the basis so uh within the context of the independence Constitution Ghana attain a full responsible uh status it reserve the existing law that is the laws which were enforced in Ghana prior to attainment of Independence and also uh created legislature uh for Ghana so the legislature which was created for Ghana did not have any uh strength ATT to the West Minister as it were uh nevertheless the point must made that the Monarch that is the head of state of the you know United Kingdom was still our ceremonial head of States but that Authority which the ceremonial head of state or the Monarch would have exercised directory in the modern day Ghana was exercised on behalf of of the Monarch by the governor general so the executive Authority vered in the queen at the time now we have a king by that time we have like the queen so that Authority was not exed directly by the Monarch but it was exed through the agency of the monarchs uh official known as the governor in general so the but direct you know governmental business was certainly run by the Prime Minister and uh the cabinet so the cabinet uh just like what pertains in Britain was responsible to legislature and the parli or the National Assembly at the time elect the members were elected except that uh uh a certain number of women were nominated and then appointed and we practice what we call the um balos government so we have the Prime Minister and his ministers taking from Parliament they exercise a rare effective governmental Authority as you have indicated and of course the ceremonial governmental Authority was vested in the Monarch uh through the governor in general now just for a footnote remark know similar Arrangements pertain in Canada and even Australia for a long time and that is why over there they don't have President they have the Prime Minister because uh they still had the monarch of United Kingdom as their head of state who was represented by the governor general so let us keep that in mind but there have been some agitation which has necessitated some reforms being done over there then the position of Attorney General was also created under the 1957 Independence Constitution and he was supposed to be like a public officer but not uh necessarily a minister and that is quite uh interesting because if you look at our current uh constitutional Arrangement particularly article 88 uh and also you look at the provision on Constitution of the cabinets of Ghana uh you notice that when you are talking about the composition of the cabinet uh the Attorney General uniquely is uh mentioned as a uh a cabinet minister and again if you look at 88 again you notice that the Attorney General is a minister as we indicated but previously he needed not to be uh a minister a minister could be assigned the responsibility for depart I mean for the Department for administrative legislative purpose but but the rare uh legal work as being the principal legal advisor of the state or the government was done by the atorney general so now we have if you like like a fusion so it may be necessary for us to actually think through as whether we want to maintain uh the status quo or do you want to have a change now that we're having uh debates regarding reform of garness 1992 Constitution uh we also had the Judiciary of course the the Judiciary of Ghana uh we can our story can go back to the 1876 uh Supreme Court ordinance uh no wonder that legislation is used as a point of reference in trying to determine uh the age of our Supreme Court so in 19 and in 76 the Centenary celebration of the Supreme Court was uh was uh celebrated and uh next year uh to uh that is 2026 another milstone of the Supreme Court existence will be celebrated but in terms of the 19557 constition or the independent constition uh the Supreme Court of Ghana was actually uh establish now this is uh important later on uh you you begin to see uh developments in R akutu but we will leave that for the time being despite the fact that the Supreme Court was the highest Appellate Court in Ghana it wasn't the final Appellate Court final Appellate Court was the privy Council or judicial uh Board of the privy Council in England now the privie council was supposed to be a special body of course derived from the house of laws who were supposed to assist the Monarch in trying to uh take care of Affairs of the colonies and then the Commonwealth as it were and then they have like the judicial committee or the judicial board and they were responsible for serving as the final Appellate Court in respect of appeals which uh traveled from uh the colonies so let's keep that in mind so if you take like the know cases like theq and KU angu versus ATA all those cases if you look at them they ended up in the briy Council of course those days we didn't we had not had the independence yet but it just tells you how the pr can like the final court for appeal again uh when it comes to uh law uh making special procedures uh existing uh for example if you wanted to to amend the Constitution as part of the processes you needed to get the the TS of all the members and Ghana was initially divided into five regions so we didn't have the 10 regions that we used until the existing regions we had five regions and later on BR have was created so for a long time BR was part of what we called Ashante region then uh the house of chiefs were also created but later uh repealed there's also a history behind that and there was a a provision to the effect that any Bill affecting chiefy should be referred to the the relevant House of chiefs as it were and that practice has actually been carried on into our current uh Constitution as you notice and if you look at the case of the warry against ofata um you notice that there was an attempt to uh get an act of parliament uh affecting Chief teny in a sense which had not comply with this uh requirement being uh know strike down there was also judicial uh Service Commission which was provided but later on repeal but you noticed that in the course of time it has it ra suff and now we have call the judicial Council so let us keep that in mind so uh this are some of the major highlights of the 19 57 or the independent uh Constitution so let us uh keep that uh in mind as I said if you want to have like the ref the test of the document constitute that contitions are available and the reproduce uh in gender and griffits uh special uh volum Onan law good so we now talk about the 1960 Constitution we move very fast because we are too familiar with it because of various discussions we had the last semester so the 1960 contion is uh very important because uh it was the major attempt to sever our unbilical C from the former Colonial Master despite the fact that we had Independence 3 years ago 1957 to 1960 we did not have we did not have like a total sance from the Metropolitan colonial power as the governor general was still around exercising ceremonia governmental Authority on behalf of the monarch of United Kingdom as it were but then contion actually cut our unbl CT and said now we are fully in charge of our destiny we don't want anybody then uh again the 196 constitution in terms of U executive Authority had what we call it the split executive which we have like the split executive uh in the sense uh oh sorry like we didn't have like the like the split executive as we had in the previous constition so now it was a fuse so the 19 constition had the the fuse executive what you call the monos the presidential uh system meaning that we were moving towards the American model uh so to speak and again in February 1960 the National Assembly that is a legislature at the time passed what we call the constituent assembly and pleite act to give authority to as as a constituent assembly to draw the new constitution so that is how the 19 Constitution if you like actually came about and in April 1960 Gans went to H double bar Po in the sense that we had a pite together with election what do you call like a referendum now together with the election to approve the first Republican constitution of 1960 and at the same time who elect the first president so that is why we said that it was like a double bar pole of course sometimes for saving of resources may be prudent to to to do that just like the ongoing constitutional uh reform debate If eventually we decide to uh amend or think out with some of the TR Provisions which warant um referendum probably instead of having just a referendum it may probably be tied to some other elections so if you look at that Constitution as I said we have like the F system we have like the president who was not just the executive president was also like the head of state and AR said that he was a fountain of honor and Commander in Chief and he was not responsible to just anybody but it was responsible only to the people and again if you look at article 8 CL 4 of the 1960 Constitution there was a provision which is quite uh striking and I quote except as may be otherwise provided by law in the exercise of His function the president shall act in his own discretion and shall not be obliged to follow advice tended by any other person unquote so that tells you uh know how the president was given largely onraed uh executive uh Authority and article 55 of the 19 Constitution also gave the first president the power whenever he considered it to be in the National interest to rule by legislative instrument which may alter any enactment other than the constition so apart from the constition the president had the power to say that I deem it to be in the National interest that this legislation passed by parliament should be changed or modified this or that way and he could just get that done so you look at article 55 of uh that uh Constitution and again under the 19 Constitution no expenditure was to be made for any public public expenditure from any public expenditure or from any uh public fund except under a warrant issued by authority of the president so if you are going to do anything which will mean that we're going to take money from any of the funds in Ghana be Consolidated or whatever uh fund we had the president needed to uh approve it of course uh if you look at that provision it has uh some resemblance with the current uh article 108 of our constitution uh which requires that when it com to settlement financial matters if parament is going to pass any Bill uh which would have implication for public funds then same must come from the government uh of the day yeah so so let us uh keep that in mind call I'm teaching so let us keep that in mind again Article 13 we are all too familiar with Article 13 of the Constitution uh which from the case of7 as we saw uh had a nineo declaration my point declaration and because we are too familiar with the r a case I presume that all of us know what article 13 the 1960 constition uh sought uh to do and uh later on when know certain actions of the government were challenged this article 13 had to be uh interpreted the Article 13 in case we forgotten was about certain solemn uh declarations which the president will make uh upon Assumption of office and also made a recognition that the powers of government emanated from the will of the people and should be exercised in accordance uh with that will and of course the Leist said about the these provisions in the 1960 constition and also a car from the 1957 contion the least said about them the better as we saw from what the Supreme Court unfortunately did in the ray Aku and seven adds now in January 1964 there was a national referendum seeking amendments to the Constitution which among other things will permit Ghana to be declared as a one party State one party State and of course the one party State means that the only legitimate political party in was going to be CPP convention people uh party and the referendum also sought to invest the president uh with a discretional power to dismiss judges or superior court at any time and for any reason which appeared to him sufficient so so that was it and uh you notice that part of that power uh is what led to the president U interfering with uh sir akosa and the rest uh following the trial of people associated with the attempted assassination at the Google now you will notice that what the 1964 amendments ought to do has been seen as a grievous error and frers of 1992 Constitution did not want that to happen and that is why if you go to our 1992 Constitution look at 3 CL one article 3 cl1 says that Parliament shall have no power to enact a law establishing a one party State unquote now if you didn't have the benefit of this history article 3 CR one would not make much sense to you but with the benefit of our constitutional history article 3 cr1 of the 1982 constition makes a lot of sense because you've seen it before where we have the dominant political party which dominated you know government and all that they use their super majority to try and say that henceforth our party is the only political party and no other political party can actually be recognized so we want to guard against that okay so we we quickly move on to the 19 uh 69 Constitution other otherwise known as the second Republican uh Constitution now we have made a jam because the 1966 Constitution as we all know uh on 24th February was overthrown following the first s F military could and we had military rule from 1966 to 197 1969 we come and talk about uh the military rule briefly but for now our focus is on the contion So eventually when we return from military rule to civilian constitutional Administration what Constitution did we adopt the Constitution we adopted is what is known as the 1969 Constitution or the second Republican Constitution now when the military had been in power for some time ostensively trying to correct errors andge Ghana of elements and influence of CPP and Kuma in the Gan Society so to speak they they set up 18 member constitutional commission under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Ed akfu Adu who son will later on become president and uh where of this commission was to assertain opinions of ghanian public on the new constitution for the country so they passed a law called the National Liberation commission decree NLC uh decree then seeking to do that and the commission set out to provide the constition that will be a strictly legal document so this was part of the of the the report and not a chter setting now Declaration of directive principles and sentiments of course uh the commission was actually bashing what has been the practice in the 1960 Constitution particularly Article 13 the solemn declaration andn to article 20 of that constition I as the Court had uh interpreted in the AO case now article 3 of The 19669 Constitution B Parliament from passing a law to establish a one party state so what we have in article three of our Uh current constitution uh goes back to the 19 uh 69 uh Constitution and as I said the background has to do with what uh president puma and the CPP took the people of Ghana through so we don't want that to OCC again that is why we have expressly provided that never again will Ghana be ch change into a one party uh State as it were some people were also disqualified from being eligible to run for governments certainly because of their involvement in uh the previous regime which had actually led to GH being turned into one party State and article 71 for example disqualified persons against whom there were adverse findings by commissions of inquiry uh from contestant to the National Assembly so if you know when the overthrow occurred uh I would know I mean there was a commission of inquiry set up and the commission of inquiry was set to prove various allegations and not mly the report was uh submitted and when the report was submitted uh some people have been found to uh seriously misconducted themselves so adverse findings were made against them so this uh contion also sought to prevent persons who had been subjects of adverse findings in other words that the commission had made uh negative findings and conclusion against them from uh being elgible to actually run for election to the National Assembly or to the legislature and I want to believe remember uh the case of a Williams against ped so if you haven't read it please go and read it now in the 1969 Constitution we went back to some of the elements in independent Constitution so in terms of executive Authority we move from having monos presidential system to by cilos that is the parliamentary system so the president yes was given the ceremonial uh powers and some other rules but the other rule apart from the ceremonial Powers the the president held how to be exercised in consultation or on advice of Council of State the prime minister or the chief justice so the type of ceremonial president if you like which we had in the split executive Arrangement under 1969 constition was uh quite uh unique and the concern was to guard against having over powerful president because they didn't want any of the things which inroma uh did in terms of his arbitrariness and capriciousness with respect to presidential discretion to OCC again and that is why uh the wings of those the person who was going to me the ceremonia uh head was actually clipped or tied so you needed to consult the Council of state or you needed to get the advice the prime minister or the chief justice as it was if you look at C 48 to 49 they instructive on that I mean 48 and 49 of 1969 constition also available in the OR gender and graph gender and graphit uh Source document on ghanian law of course we had the the rare executive Authority by the Prime Minister and who was definitely a member of parliament the power of the legislature that is the National Assembly in making laws was limited by Presidential Power of V but the Presidential Power of V if you look at it just like what we have uh under article 106 of our constitution was not to be exercised without the requisite checks and balances so the power of element to make law uh could be uh overring or interfered with by presidenti sh V which in itself was also subject to a number of significant tax and balances as it were then we the Supreme Court was given expressly the power of judicial review over legislative enactments and governmental actions so if you look at article two of the 1969 Constitution for the first time and in no uncertain terms or without any equivocation it was stated that I mean just like what we have in the article two of our current constition that any person who alleges that any Act of parament or any act or Mission government or anything is inconsistent with the letter and spr of the Constitution may go to Supreme Court and seek a declaration to that effect now this was quite pregnant and it had a certain background and you and I knew very well from our learning of the the Supreme Court decision in the r and seven others how the Supreme Court uh had declared itself to be impotent as far as uh making constitutional pronouncements regarding executive actions were concerned and that is why the frame of the 1969 Constitution expressly and explicitly Prov divided uh in par material or in similar terms what we have in current article two of the 1992 Constitution uh like another Point uh to note is that the power of the Supreme Court to subject legislative uh enactments to judicial review was actually tested in the well-known case of Salah verus Attorney General Salah versus attorney general if you remember how the buia Le government sought to actually lay off uh know a lot of workers from various government work including the gntc and how some of them uh challenge it and said that if you look at the transitional provisions of the 1969 contion uh they think that uh they could not uh be removed from office because the office that they were holding uh could not be interpreted within the pview of AD 71 of the transitional provision of 199 contion who have been established that is brought into existence by the National Liberation uh Council that is the military government which took over after overthrowing and chroma so it was in the context of that case if you remember that the Attorney General at the time uh sought to advance the case of the state through the lenses of Professor Hans kelson's theory of discontinuity the use of the G nor and all that and you saw how the Supreme Court rejected that we last semester we learned a lot about this so I not believe the point the 1969 Constitution also set up a number of independent and semi independent or qua independent bodies to control the excise of powers granted to the government so we had the utsman the utsman is a equivalent of what in the 1992 contion you called the commission on human rights and administrative Justice yeah so it's a equivalent of that although the commiss on human rights administrative Justice is uh in terms of institutional size scope and everything uh relatively bigger than the utsman and in terms of functionality and Essence uh it was quite similar or analogous the then also established the public uh Services Commission the Public Service Commission that we have now it goes back into the past the police councel Arm Forces councel and then a previous prison service board and the constition was careful to ensure that the West Minister parliamentary system which you had adopted by having the those who control effective executive Authority drawn from Parliament prime minister and the ministers work effectively there was a need to make adequate Pro for opposition definitely in democracy you always have opposition without opposition there's no what democracy you have like a one party know State as it were so article 7 53 so to make the opposition leader that is the government I mean the leader of the the minority party that the minority in Contra distinction to the government Le party in Parliament if you like now in Ghana we have interesting concept micro minority super and so very interesting yes so the opposition leader under the 199 Constitution was made a member of the Council of state so that was quite uh uh innovative development and his salary if you look at 72 was faced at 23 that of the prime minister so the leader of the majority party in Parliament not in government what you call opposition was supposed to be given equivalent to that's about 23 equivalent of whatever was paid to the prime minister the head of the the government certainly uh it makes sense because the leader of opposition is also doing a unique work for efficiency and effectiveness of governance The 1975 Constitution prevented cross cap so if you were an MP you could not cross carpet that is if you have been elected by party a why in Parliament you could not say that I'm no longer know happy with party a so I want to join Part B if you did that you lost your seat and if you look at it baring roeting was important because if that was not bad you could end up having the one party State you are trying to avoid yes Ghana will not be declared the one party state but you can get like the know the government party which has a lot of resources opportunity at disposal using it to Le the MPS in opposition from abandoning their party to come and join the government party and you end up there'll be no acquisition in Parliament and the one party State you had stated that Parliament cannot pass a law to T into that it will be happen in the facto if not in the jury in Parliament itself because all the MPS will have no cross caret to the ruling party in order to enjoy the goodies another observable feature of the 199 constition is that there were elaborate provisions on fundamental human rights so what we have in current chapter 5 what we call the fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms were started in 1969 Constitution and of course against the backdrop of the human right violations and abuses that will witness under Inca Le CPP and which also saw Ghana becoming caricature of democracy when we had the Amendments telling GH into one party State and it was a fear to even express contrary views so for avoidance of Doubt knowing article 30 of the 19 Constitution the position of the law has been that those Declaration of fundamental principles which effectively look like what we call human rights now being made upon Assumption of office by the president had been stated not to be enforceable that was the position as we saw in the r we did not want that to happen and that is why the framess of the 9 constition went out of their way to say that the fundamental human rights so ured or guaranteed are enforceable now the Constitution was also careful to protect certain constitutional Arrangement mechanism for that matter with respect to a M there were some important Provisions which were made and trench and they could not be amended under any circumstances apart from those seven entrenched Provisions which could not be amended under any circumstances there were 45 other Provisions which could be amended but you needed to go to Supreme Court to get PR leave authorization or approval as it were so let us keep that in mind so the point was to make it difficult to amend the the Constitution then we also had about 82 Provisions which were not entrenched and needed to test majority across uh no Parliament before uh that could be amended we also had what we call the transitional Provisions transitional Provisions in the sense that before they coming to force this n Constitution we've had a military government so certain things needed to be provided for in order to Pro I mean to attain a seamless uh know switch or crossover or transition to the new constitutional order and we had a presidential commission uh which was supposed to actually exercise the presidential powers and then we have the indemnity clause if you look at section 13 so the indemnity clause uh which will be part of our constitutional Arrangement because of the intervention of the military in governance when they come uh often times people take Liberties and they do all manner of bad things if you are to subject those actions and Nations some of them to strict legal scrutiny you notice that uh there have been serious violations of the law and if the new government is minded to enforce the law all such persons could be arrested and dealt with so as a a friendly transition assurances are given to the military Jun and all those who work with them uh that they have been indemnified and they be granted if you like immunity and so on so as part of a transition just towards the latter stage the National Liberation Council set up a three member presidential commission and they were to perform function of the president for up to three years and the idea was that they were supposed to ensure uh graduated the transition and one interesting thing about the Clause you've mentioned which will later on uh know our friend president Rollins also get included in the 1992 Constitution and profor Kum my teacher did an interesting article called forgive us our trespasses try in the University of Ghana law J trying to reflect on the indemnity clause in our 1992 Constitution now with respect to the 1969 Constitution inity Clause it's thebat any Court action against the 24th febr 196o so if you wanted to seal or wanted to prosecute anybody for any role play in the over Ina the court will not have Juris but if you want to understand the broader philosophy or the rational in opining the transitional provision of the9 contion you want to go back and reread the case we've read before Salah versus attorney general now we come to the 1969 I mean 79 Constitution as you remember unfortunately the beautiful 1969 constition did not uh live long we had another uh h on 13th January 1972 by group of soldiers and the police that will call themselves The National Redemption Council NRC so they two will be in power for a long time and as we remember uh later on there will be I'm teaching there right uh later on uh they two will be removed from U uh office and eventually we have our friend JJ Rollins uh the soall junior Jesus also coming into the picture to do the the June 4th Uprising and agreeing that we should allow transitioning which was taking place to actually go on so we had a 1979 Constitution so the 1979 Constitution which ushered in the third Republic one of the shortest uh know lived Republic as well we thank God that the Fourth Republic 1992 Constitution has actually live long and of course the whole of ghanians we've pronounced Advanced case on anybody who attempt to the cons that maybe as Jesus told whoever is going to betray him that it would have been better for him if he had not been born uh than to put a a mstone around his neck and throw himself into the sea so in the same vein uh 192 Constitution has provided it own unforgivable uh threats and then public anger against anyone regardless of the situation weever plan youring to attempt to overthrow our constitution in fact a Cas should be that person and that person should be T so that will not happen because military regime is not a good thing yeah so if you take the 1979 uh Constitution in terms of Futures we again move away so Ghana is very interesting you know in 1960 we we had moved from the 1957 from the British model of government that is a byal serving no parliamentary government to presidential in become became the president head of state and head of government and in 1969 we said no we don't like that we want to go back to the British model uh we have our prime minister and then we have uh know the presidential commission as it were in 1979 we decided to make another uh Retreat and we went back to the American model so we abandon the British model of the parliamentary system or the balos government we have like the full separation or or full presidential system anchored on the separation between the executive and the legislature so the president is the head of state and head of government as we currently also have in 1992 Constitution and was vested with executive powers and was to be assisted by a vice president the president was to be directly elected for a fouryear term and eligible for a second term just like what we have currently another 1979 contion we also had Council of state to Aid and Council or advise the president in Parliament in performance of their functions ministers under 1979 Constitution were to be appointed by the president the proud approval of Parliament and MPS who have been appointed Minister how to resign from Parliament now this aspect of constitution is worth reflecting especially uh during our time when we are debating how our 192 constition will be reformed so if you look at the 1979 Constitution uh if you were A Member of Parliament and we elected a minister I mean you appointed a minister you have to resign from Parliament but under the current Arrangement as uh you notice it's not like that even the contion said that majority of the um ministers are supposed to come from Parliament so we need to think through is that a good arrangement will we be better off if we had the ministers all taken from outside parliament of course our country to knowing ourselves how we are if the MPS want not gang up against the government in this ministers in terms of maybe goodies for the benefits likees so it's something we need to think through or simply take out the the clause which say that majority of ministers will come from Parliament and simply says that some of the minister may come from parliament in which case the president doesn't have the obligation to take majority of the minister from Parliament the president can take one or two or as many as it deems necessary it be something for us to ponder members of parliament were elected separately for five year time a year more than that of the president so the president you exhaust your tener in the parament that you came into office with will still be in office for one more year is that a good idea or it's not a good idea it's something for us to Think Through the 1979 Constitution did not abolish the office of the utsman it's contining that constitutional practice and endow it with with mandate to investigate public uh corruption and to qualify to be appointed an utman he must have been a lawyer for at least 12 years so 12 years that's equivalent of know qu appeal then the 79 cons continued the regime of enforceable fundamental human rights which has started under the 1969 Constitution and then the high court was actually designated as appropriate forum for enforcement of fundamental human rights so what we have in current article 33 of the Constitution goes back to this previous Constitution and the 1979 Constitution introduced the concept of Legally enforceable socioeconomic rights and this was introduced through Arrangement the fres called directive principles of of State policy and the idea was to force the government to achieve certain desired social economic objectives a respective of the state of public opinion government priorities and state of the economy so if you look at chapter 4 of the 1979 Constitution articles 6 to8 you get that sense and of course just similar to article to chapter 6 of 1992 Constitution from article uh I 34 uh to 41 as it were so directive principle of State policy to is there something that we should retain in our constitution how has been the practice has our Supreme Court been courageous and also able to mobilize this principle of State policy in order to Checkmate what the executive is doing regarding certain sherish aspirations as far as the destination we want to arrive as a society is or just being like a a white wash so there's no need to have it on our conal tablet something we have to think through the 1979 constition to establish independent electoral commission but there we had the soul commissioner So currently we have like the like the commission have like the chairperson and then the deputy chair person of course the voting age uh inv was 18 years and the 1979 constiution introduced some independent Constitution it had if you like a new know independent bodies the press for example what you call like the media commission now uh National development or you National development and Planning Commission the forest commission and then 1879 contion also provided a rigid method of amendment so if you look at chapter 25 of the 1979 Constitution you wanted to amend and Tren provision you needed to get the popular referendum before you could even proceed now one problem which has been pervasive in our various constitutional uh experiments or projects has been the effect of constitutional provision and that is why we all praying that the fres I mean the aspiration of of in through contion will actually live through or be be there that nobody should overthrow our constition because anytime you have this overthrow of contion government and you're moving back to constitutional rule we get this problem of trans transitional uh no difficulties if you look at like to4 attorney general uh somebody who held the position had been properly Ved as the J Supreme Court and so on and has been now appointed as the Chief Justice must he go through uh the vetting process again should it be any particular way and so on and so forth so uh you remember to as attorney general so I will not be lab the point but just to reemphasize that anytime we have like a new constitution we need to deal with transitional matters uh any uh question before we move on if you have a question please put up your hand