The law should never be a tool for oppression - Kufuor

Accra, March 9, GNA - The revised Laws of Ghana, published in seven volumes, have been launched with a reminder by President John Agyekum Kufuor that the law should never be a tool for oppression in the country but serve as a liberating force to promote enlightenment and guarantee fundamental human rights, freedom and development.

The revision process, the first since Ghana's Independence, commenced in 1998 with funding from the World Bank and was designed to produce a comprehensive user friendly set of statutes.

Captured in this are, the Laws of Governance, Economic, Financial and Commercial Laws and Private Sector Laws.

The comprehensive review involved, among other things, the compilation of 2,000 pieces of legislation to fill gaps in the laws, omitting those that have been expressly repealed, become spent, expired or ceased to have effect, adaptations of amendments to Acts to bring them into conformity with the Constitution and a re-writing of the law in plain language to remove ambiguities, vagueness and convoluted sentences.

President Kufuor noted that the law was critical to national development and said the next 50 years should see Ghana as a great, united and developed nation built on the sound foundation of the rule of law.

Referring to the adoption by Ghanaians of the 1992 Constitution, he said, it was a confirmation of the resolve of the people to live their motto of 93Freedom and Justice."

"Now, we as a nation can assert that Ghana is truly free. The evidence is all around us in terms of the fundamental freedoms we enjoy, especially freedom of speech, which is now very entrenched in the country."

President Kufuor, however, cautioned that freedom without responsibility could lead to anarchy.

"It is only in responsible exercise of freedom that the latent energies of all can be harnessed for greater strides to be made to our national development."

He praised Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe, the Statute Law Revision Commissioner, for the feat.

Mr Joe Ghartey, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, said the revision had rid the country's laws of provisions which were inconsistent with the Constitution and thus reasserted the supremacy of the Constitution.

He said the law had been demystified, something that would in no doubt enshrine the rule of law in the country.

"This revision could not have come at a better time. In our jubilee year we have taken steps to simplify our laws and lay a firm foundation for generations yet unborn."

Vice President Aliu Mahama, Mr Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes, Speaker of Parliament and Professor Daniel Adzei Bekoe, Chairman of the Council of State, joined members of the Bench and the Bar at the ceremony.

Revision of statutes should be done at regular intervals of 10 years but in the case of Ghana since the first review in 1931, the only time the process was carried out again was in 1951.