okay so having had some tutorial based upon our last week lecture on the first part of discussion of historical evolution of Ghana's Constitution we would like to continue with the part two of our discussion of historical evolution of Ghana's Constitution now just a a quick recap we noted from our first part of our lecture last week that before our introduction of a colonial rule the present day Ghana was not uh a uniform uh Society in terms of having a common leadership as it were we have different kingdoms choms and these kingdoms and choms had their own traditional governance arrangement in some cases we have a centralized know societies and then a non- centralized or aalos and aous uh groups and these traditional societies have their own arrangement of governance and the authority of those who govern was either derived from some ancestry in terms like a blood land or derive from uh some uh Divine or spiritual claim as it were and that had implication for uh legitimacy of their Authority and also obedience which they are objects yielded to them because if you disobeyed their decrees and their ordinances it was not just orinary leaders but you had also sort of like defied religious uh belief as it were now we saw how that gradually uh became affected by the coming of the the British when started initially as a trading Merchants uh George mlan and so on as part of the trading Arrangements the British eventually acquired force and C castles which other Traders had established and had left uh the the coast and having acquired them uh established some kind of administration for those who were trading along the coast and gradually there was this uh uh know leader mlin which came who uh became interested in trying to expand uh his SE influence to areas beyond the force and the castles to some of the communities along uh the coast and how in the course of time uh problems were created and as a result of the problems created uh the British uh government set up a committee to look into it and then when they set up a committee to look into it it was realized that the Authority or the administration which uh the colonial officials at the time that is ML and Co were exercising they don't have proper legal basis and they had arrogated to themselves a lot of powers or authorities that stly speaking they did not have under the law so to cure that to overcome that uh manifest uh uh Omission or deficit they pass the requisite legislation uh the the no British uh territories and then the foreign jurisdiction legislation uh which sought to provide uh proper foundation for the necessary uh ordinance order in councils the necessary uh legal legal authority to be made to H rationalize and legitimize The Authority that the colonial I mean the the British officials were exercising beyond the force and castles and we saw how within the context of the various uh uh uh developments we had the the Monumental uh agreement known as the born of U 1844 uh being uh executed by the uh British uh Administration and uh some of the fany uh chief uh through which the the the know the fany Chiefs as traditional leaders undertook to uh abolish certain practices which the British officials are considered to be uh improper to be dehumanizing and our moded and also for them to agree for certain types of of dispute or uh offenses to be tried using the British model of adjudication especially so where heavy offenses and heavy sentences were to be Meed out to the offenders so that is the famous Bond of 1844 and we saw how it was executed on 6 March and we said that uh that uh L had implication for the date on which uh the good Cod s to uh asset or declare independence because the Independence was declared on the 6 March 1957 then we also saw how over time there was various constitutional changes and these changes incrementally that is gradually sought to uh respond to agitation by the the native people uh who who whose agitation were championed by their Elites or the intelligential as it were and ultimately got uh them involved initially got the intelligential some of them involved and then later on to the traditional leaders also wanted the more more involvement or more say and various Constitutional Amendment were made to accomodate that so if you look at the trend if you look at the path or the trajectory along which the various constitutional changes took uh within the first phase of the colonial era you notice that each subsequent uh contion which was adopted was an attempt to improve the preceding one an attempt to provide solution to certain constitutional problems and crisis uh which had actually uh confronted the previous Constitution so that was the General Trend and we and then ended our class on the very uh no Landmark constitutional development known as the constitution of 1925 under the opes of uh no sir G gesb and we saw how that contion made uh sweeping changes and trying to provide uh very welcoming uh responses to some of the problems which were actually phased and we noted that uh that uh cons uh was actually uh noted uh for trying to address some of the demands which had been uh Advanced by the aborigin protection aorin right protection Society starting from U 1897 uh there and uh also how the the Chiefs and then the varous uh emerging uh municipalities uh were given more involvement in the legislative U uh Council and the executive Council and then the elective Principle as we noted was also uh adopted for the first time as far as composition of the legislative Council was concerned other than what used to be the case previously where people were just a handpick according to the whs and caises of the Bonia uh Administration so we also saw uh the provincial councils how uh that was also introduced uh especially the prominence which was given to the traditional Authority so it was on that note that we ended the last class so we continue with our exploration or discussion of the evolution of gh's constitution uh moving from the 1925 to another major stop the constitution of 1946 known as the Alan Constitution and that contion uh was very uh important uh Constitution for a number uh of reason and one significant development is what we call introduction of the representative government for both The Colony and asan now let me emphasize this the colonist know properly understood that is the fan communities and all the other uh Parts uh excluding Asante and of course it will take a while before the N territories are also included now the Ashante or what you call the Asante of course Ashante is angiz version of Ashante of Asante but the proper thing is Asante that is the original uh know afria of prounce now the Assan were actually defeated so let keep let's keep that in mind they were defeated by the the British in war so that is uh what led to uh establishment of uh know authority over there so let us uh appreciate uh that but for as you notice the other castal communities the colonial Authority extended their rule through Treaty of friendship including like the born of 1844 but the asantis had a couple of Wars uh they beheaded know S as MTI and then the British decided to also Revenge that and you saw how that actually man fasted and eventually even 1901 how the S war and then other s war and so on so for them it was a matter of like know no Conquest so that is why the Asanti was treated separately from what we call like the uh the The Colony and if we look at the B contion again it could be argued that and as profor Kum notes in his work that since 1850 it is the Alan V contion of 18 4 1946 so to speak which which for the first time introduced what we called African majority in the legislative Council the legislative Council was the the leg lure at the time and uh for the first time in terms of membership the Africans were given the majority uh if you look at it so let us keep that in mind so the other features apart from the representative government and also the majority uh given to Africans was the abandonment of the what you call official majority principle the official majority principle means that the colonial government uh through it various officials were to be giv more seats in the legislative uh uh Council but that was actually uh abolished and uh African who were the unofficials in other words they did not have like if you like position in government they were rather giving uh more seats in the legislative Council so let us keep that in mind and again if we take the standing finance committee uh Africans were also given uh more seats the majority seats on the standing Finance uh committee uh mean that Africans were not going to have greater voice in how Revenue was created and how Revenue was expended and we also had uh for the first time uh having uh representative from Asante uh in the legislative Council but those who were to serve on the legislative Council they have to have some form of allegiance to the golden St that is as and they were four in member so they were selected by the if you like but then the governor retained his dual powers of veto Ando reservation uh so the VTO power simply meant that uh the governor could override whatever the majority in the legancy had uh voted as far as law making was concerned or instead of ring it could uh make a reservation with respect to a particular uh uh proposal as it were so let us keep that in mind again there was also inclusion of representative of the joint provincial Council of Chiefs and they were expressly uh made integral part of the Constitutional machinary but the point need to be made that to serve on the joint provincial Council of chiefs which had now be made integral part of contion Machinery uh you needed to be a Paramon Chief uh recognize by the government as owing the necessary uh uh allegiance to particular customer law and that practice is foundation of what has carried on into the mod day no if you look at our contion and achy Act if you are a paron chief you need to be gazetted uh for your status in terms of legitimacy to be completed so the practice of U gazetting uh Chiefs uh is something what is not just start it has uh a background uh to some of this pray uh Independence Colonial uh contion so let us uh keep that in mind course alanan alanan contion also introduced Provisions which prohibited the consideration of any matter which will dispose of public funds or impose all tation without the approval of the governor so that provision is also quite uh significant in terms of what we have in our own Constitution if we look at our current constition particularly article 108 there is a provision to the effect that if you are going to uh get any Bill uh introduce in Parliament and that baill is going to have implication on state funds in terms of imposing tax or in terms of uh being expenditure on state funds such as the Consolidated fund and other state funds that bill must have the blessing of the government of the day it must be initiated by the government of the day so a private members Bill cannot actually uh impose TX or cannot be a chart or cannot be an expenditure on any of the state funds now that practice goes back to the Alan Ben constitution of 1946 so let us keep that in mind of course the alanan contion also introduced native to Executive Council executive Council L the arm of government the cabinet and all that for a long time it had been the white uh British but uh the B contion allow more natives to be introduced to that Council so that is a major uh development so let us uh keep that uh in mind okay so we will uh quickly uh jump to the 19 uh 51 uh Constitution uh by the point uh to note about the 1951 Constitution was that there were certain problems in the good and those problems uh actually gave R to the bances uh in the period between 1948 and 1949 and the dis disturbances uh also involve boycotts boycotts of European businesses that is to say that the local people decided not to patronize schs and services provided by the esparr the Europeans and that boot was led by a gentleman known as ni Bon he was the Allahu that is the chief ofu and uh certainly that uh agitation uh brought a lot of uh uh unrest and it also provided the impetus for the formation of an offshoot of the first political parties with the first political party was the ugcc United good go convention United good verion as we know from the history was that they wanted political Independence of the Gold Coast within the shortest possible time now the new boy agitation uh between the 1948 and uh 49 provided uh impetus provided some momentum for the Secretary General of the ugc S inoma to actually break off and set up what you call the CPP convention people's party uh and the convention people party uh took advantage of the euphobia which had been provided by the new boy Thompson's boycott of European businesses and Ina declared what you call the positive action in 1949 and the positive action of 1949 also meant that the CPP was asserting its aim political governance now as opposed to political I mean political Independence within the shortest possible time a convers by ug ored a good convention now this uh developments prompted the governor at the time sir uh Alan uh Vance to actually set up what is known as the Watson committee uh the Waton uh committee investigated the various distances to try and understand what was happening and the Wason uh committee uh actually describe Alan B's constitution of 1946 as being aded at be uh that is to say that as far as uh that as far as that contion was concerned before it was even uh introduced uh it was uh not fit for purpose so this was the finding of the alanb I mean the Wason committee which have been set up by uh Governor Alan Ben and that suggested that there was a need for a constitutional uh review or constitutional uh reform committee so a 40 member all African constitutional committee under theair chairmanship of Sir Henley Kus uh was actually set up and it made proposal for reforming the alans B constitution based upon the various fundings which the commission had made following the Declaration of positive know action by chromas CPP and so on so what was the Mandate of the cus constition committee among other things was to I I mean the recommendation among other things which uh you know they submitted was that uh there was a need for enlargement of the legislative council with a view to making it more representative of the D good course uh as a whole and then again it also recommended that the executive committee should have African majority however the three executive the the official members namely the colonial secretary the financial secretary and attorney general should be retained meaning that despite the fact that Africans were going to majority in the executive arm of government uh certain key position the colonial secretary who has a n officer member and then the attorney general and then the financial secretary were to be retained by the British and Z recommended that there should be a by camera uh legislature uh that is a an upper house or Senate and a legislative assembly and also modernization of local government so these were some of the proposals and you notice that these proposals largely made their way into the Constitution which was adopted by the then uh colonial government uh leading to what we call the 1951 uh Constitution so you notice that there's a important shift of governance from the colonial authority to the Africans to the natives as it were if you take the legislative CC for example the name changed to legislative assembly as you've indicated and almost all the members were elected the good coasters about 75 only 10 on there also Public Service Commission we also had the uh provision that budget estim of the Civil Service was to be approved by the Legislative Assembly so there were major uh important constitutional development but one noticeable thing is that if you look at the fact that uh the ministers were to be appointed by the Governor from the assembly members and approved by the assembly that is somewhat similar to the current provision in 19 76 to 79 that majority of ministers should be selected from parliament of course uh that has its own challenges and as we move on with our exploration of uh the current Constitution we will have uh a more uh uh debate as far as the Constitutional provision which says that majority of ministers should come from Parliament is concerned so let's keep that uh in mind well in 1952 there was a Amendment of the 1951 Constitution now previously there was how called the leader of government uh business in Parliament now that was uh created as the office of uh Min prime minister so the Prime Minister was now a member of the legislative assembly the executive Council was now called cabinets so we see that gradually the Constitutional Machinery was becoming uh similar to that which pertains in any matur democracy at the time including the Metropolitan uh Britain yeah so in 19 uh 54 we also had uh what could be called uh increment consu as uh it were uh so that uh consu was contained in an instrument officially known as the the Gold Coast uh contion order in council 1954 and uh this contion uh reflected the radical Pusher of K chroma and his C PP especially so uh when you look at the fact that most of the thingss contained the wind uh were similar or mimic the West Minister model of [Music] tional governance as it were so some of the key uh things uh we have like the three main organs of government so now we have like a fullblown legislature executive and Judiciary and they all clearly identify with their powers and functions so that that is quite uh significant again if we look at session 6 to session 22 of that uh instrument we had a fully defined cabinet system headed by the prime uh Minister then the Legislative Assembly was also enlarged uh from 85 to 104 elected members with the speaker in a single chamber so we didn't have a double chamber just a single chamber maybe just like the House of Commons we didn't have the equivalent of like the house of laws as it were then the Chief Justice was to be appointed by the governor in consultation with the Prime Minister other judges were to be appointed by the governor in consultation with the Judicial Service Commission which have been created by the Constitution so you notice that uh some of those Provisions are a bit similar to what we have now uh now we look at the current Arrangement the Chief Justice appointed by the presidents in the consultation the judicial Council advice of the Council of State approval of Parliament and then the same thing applies like the Supreme Court judges and then the other Superior Court Justices you know uh in consultation with the judicial Council again the governor retained his VTO power still under the 1954 Constitution and also power to reserve and certify legislation to the pleasure of the Secretary of St for colonies in London so the P of reservation simply means that if you go to London there was a government Minister called the Secretary of State for the colonist like the a foreign minister responsible for the various colonies of Britain so if you are the colonial government you not happy with a particular proposed legislation which have been passed by legislative Council and you didn't want to veto it you could uh refer it to the you know Colonial Secretary of State and State your reasons or your concerns with that particular legislation and abide the outcome of his decision before you could go on as whether that legislation passed by the Legislative Council should be ascented to or not as it were so if you look at the4 contion critically one could argue that uh there had been a full internal self-government that is to say that as far as internal affairs of governance are concerned uh the colonial government did not have much say but rather it was the elected uh natives good good Coes who were very much in charge of T so that was how significant the 1954 Constitution was now in 1955 there was a an attempt to reform the Constitution and that was the actually uh uh rejected as it were and around that time there had been so many um political uh movements including the northern people's uh party NPP not the current new party and the northern People's Party their main interest was to protect economic interest of the relatively underdeveloped Northern Territories and to resist domination so if you look at it now if you look at Ghana Ghana has been going through a lot of shites so for a long time it's like the sness have dominated the political space now if you look at now it's like it's now the time for the northern uh regions for also provide a more uh dominant leadership for for Ghana so this has a a long history going back to even like the the pre-independence colonial era as it were we also had the tooland congress party uh which was interested in the measure of the British trust territory of toand with fren tooland instead of being mered as minority of the independent good course if you remember following the defeat of the Germany in the uh second world war the colon interest he had had all be taken over and the UN had created something something like a trust so uh present day V region was part of that which was previously own and controlled by the the Germans and that is why if you look at the the the the a language okay if you look at the alphabets and how it is written you can see uh some uh linkages with aspect of some of like the German language that explains it so that's a little bit of a background there but following their defeat in the door they had now lost control so uh we had a political group called the toolan congress party who didn't want uh the present day region to be made part of Ghana which seem to be gradually on the verge of attaining Independence and rather wanted it to be part of the French speaking too so that was what that political party stood for and then we also had the National Liberation movement nlm uh which was uh launched in Kumasi in 1955 to fight for larger share of coko revenue for Asanti especially when CPP declared his policy of using National Revenue uh regardless of where it is generated from whether it's generated from the the forest B is generated from the b or the northern regions it is going to be used for purpose of countrywide development now this was presented by the National Liberation movement they thought that the Asanti and Asanti uh for the historical purpose included uh modern day Bruna and those were the places where the Coco was largely cultivated and the revenue so created and they did not like the fact that revenue from there was used for development of the whole of Ghana and they were also not happy with the producer price uh which was being uh set by the C government we also had the Muslims Association party which also was supported by the Kumasi and the colon zong areas and so many other Splinter groups including the gash party which also sought to preserve gance for G people so these were uh the bigger contest as far as the post 1954 uh know constitutional developments were concern so let us uh keep that uh in mind so uh the various opposition including the nlm wanted creation of a council of states in which uh know certain high ranking members of society would actually be given seat and then some they also wanted second chamber of parliament like you know the upper chamber maybe like the house of laws or the Senate and they also wanted the Federation especially dlm they wanted an arrangement in which uh we have like federal states you have like the know the state government and then the federal government in that way let's say that those in the Asante they will have their local uh know governance and a lot of things will be control from there and they on Al uh propose autonomy of regional councils like the various Regal which have been set up under the 1954 Constitution and all that should be given autonomy just like if you go to maybe Northern Ireland uh Northern Ireland is part of United Kingdom but they enjoy uh autonomy just like the Scottish uh Parliament and also the wsh assembly so that's what they wanted but they were also rejected and also also want comprehensive code of fundamental rights all those were rejected and as a compromise uh we have the what you call the the bonds Constitution which we will discuss at our next class it's a bit late now it's qu to 9: so we draw the curtain down and we continue from here and hope to end at our next class but next week we have a quiz from the prim of the contion up to article I think 56 so get ready when we meet in class thank you have a good night