Mahama can make ‘last minute’ appointments but… – Kofi Abotsi

 President John Mahama is currently well within his right to make appointments before the handover of power on January 7, 2017, the Dean of the faculty of law at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Kofi Abotsi has stated.

At the moment, the President can do anything he is mandated to do as he is still the Head of State, Mr. Abotsi said on the Citi Breakfast Show, but he questioned if such appointments were on the right side of the moral spectrum.

This follows President Mahama’s swearing-in of the new heads for the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE).

The incoming New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has said these appointments were in bad faith and has indicated it may review these and other appointments when it assumes the mantle of governance.

President Mahama was also subsequently sued by Lawyer Philip Addison who believes the President erred in these appointments and is thus seeking to restrain him from using his last days in office to make such decisions.

Nonetheless, Mr. Abotsi is of the view that “till the Supreme Court speaks, the President has the power to act until the midnight of the 6th of January.”

“So in the circumstance of where we stand at the moment, the government has acted properly. Legally speaking, on the face of the text of the constitution, the President is right.”

Principled decision-making must prevail

Despite the President retaining the right to make such appointments by law, Mr. Abotsi indicated that the Constitution that gave him this right is ostensibly limited hence the concept of the spirit of the law.

“Not all things must be informed must law. The constitution as you see it is a very limited document and that is why the framers of the constitution… inserted the concept of the spirit. The spirit is to inform the letter,” he explained.

On the possible outcomes of the lawsuit, Mr. Abotsi said he suspected the Supreme Court was “probably going to take a very dynamic view as far as the law is concerned.”

In line with the spirit of the law, Mr. Abotsi implored that principled decision-making prevail so as to avoid saddling the incoming government with far-reaching consequences.

“You do not want you successor to be bogged down by decisions you have taken that have effects beyond your term. Principled decision-making actually dictates that around this time, you do not take new decisions that will have the effect of binding the government especial when they are not practically necessary,” he said.