Parliament needs law monitoring mechanism - CDD

Legal experts brainstorming on subsidiary legislation at a workshop on Saturday urged Parliament to establish a mechanism to monitor effects of laws it made so that it could periodically review them to deepen democratic practices.

They experts said it was not enough for Parliament to delegate its powers to bodies in passing legislative, executive and constitutional instruments and relax in its legislative duties without knowing how those rules were affecting governance of the citizens.

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) with the collaboration of the Parliamentary Committee on Subsidiary Legislation organised the workshop under the theme: "Democratising the making of subsidiary Legislation in Ghana" at Akosombo.

The workshop was being sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development and drew participants from the Supreme Court, Parliament and legal research outfit of the CDD.

It was aimed at thoroughly reviewing subsidiary legislation process to make it consistent with the 1992 Constitution and the importance attached to delegated legislation, administrative law-making and administrative justice, so that Parliament in delegating its powers would be careful not to have the judiciary nor the executive to surreptitiously usurp its legislative powers.

In a general discussion after the presentation of papers, Professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of CDD, said the law making body should not be lazy in scrupulously examining the merits and the demerits of legislative instruments.

The participants agreed that sufficient consultations should be held with stakeholders and the public before a subsidiary legislation should be passed to enable cross-fertilization of views and suggestions to enrich it so that it could avoid all partisan considerations for it to stand the test of time.

Mr Justice V.C. R. A. C. Crabbe, Statute Law Revision Commissioner, said there many existing laws especially legislative and executive instruments needed thorough examination and that Parliament as the law making body should know the constitutional provisions that gave it the absolute power to pass its laws.

He said for Parliament to be bogged down by Article 11 (7C), which gave 21 sitting days of the legislature after which a subsidiary legislation laid before it could become law if it was not annulled within the 21 days.

The participants were of the view that Parliament should not only pass subsidiary regulations as presented to it in its original form or just to annul it but it ought to examine critically and might alter, enrich or add to it since it was the only law making body under the constitution.

Ms Kim Stanton, Research Associate, CDD presenting a paper on Subsidiary Legislation Procedure in Ghana: Review and Recommendation for Reform called for the drafting of a law to govern subsidiary legislation process and to substantially amend the Statutory Instruments Act of 1959.

She said it should have the agency proposing the instrument to prepare a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement (RIAS) to explain the regulation its purpose, the rationale for its creation, and its anticipated costs benefits and impacts.

The RIAS should be available to ministers and the public to solicit input and contribute to transparency in the regulatory process and the agency promulgating the instrument should conduct consultation with relevant stakeholders and to review input from the public, if any.

Ms Stanton said, "Parliament, particularly through the Attorney General's office and the Committee should ensure that the proposed subordinate legislation is constitutional, conforms to the rule of law, does not infringe on rights unnecessarily, and is the minimum legislative intervention necessary to achieve the desired goal."

Mr Amos Buertey, Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Subsidiary Legislation said sometimes some regulations would have to be withdrawn because they contained legal and constitutional issues.

She said if such laws like the one in respect with Ghana National Fire Service, a provision in it would not allow workers of the Service even to belong to a trade union or even to belong to Old Students Associations of their schools.

Mrs Buertey said such a regulation would not be in consistent with Article 21 of the Constitution, which allowed for freedom of association.

He called on participants to come out with processes that could enhance subsidiary legislation.