Special Prosecutor’s Bill hits snag

Europa 17:40 - 21 July 2017

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The minority in parliament had earlier raised issues of constitutional breaches, saying that the bill had not been gazetted when it was first laid on Tuesday.

The Parliamentary, Constitutional and Legal Committee of Parliament has rejected a request by the government for the office of the Special Prosecutor’s Bill to be passed under a certificate of urgency.

The committee has therefore recommended that the bill should be taken through all the normal processes.

Speaking on the floor of parliament on Friday, the chairman of the committee Ben Abdallah said “going through the memorandum and the body of the bill itself, we realized that bill carries a lot of weighty issues that need to be discussed and that therefore need a broader stakeholder consultation and this cannot be done within a short period of time.

“It was therefore the considered opinion and view of the committee that in view of the reasons mentioned above this bill cannot be treated under a certificate of urgency.”

The Office of a Special Prosecutor was a major campaign promise of Nana Akufo-Addo while he was the opposition candidate in the December 2016 elections.

While many have said the office would be a duplication of roles, because there are agencies such as Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice and the Economic and Organised Crime Office are responsible for investigating corruption, others have praised its implementation and called on the president to make it truly independent of political interference.