US-based lawyer and professor Prof. Kweku Asare says President Akufo Addo does not have any constitutional right, under a democratic government, to cancel the planned December 17 referendum.

According to him, only a military government can do so.

He told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Tuesday that the bill had given birth to a law and cannot be withdrawn because it has created a new instrument which authorized a referendum.

“The bill no longer belongs to the sponsors. The best results would have come from the referendum. The bill has given birth to a law Ci (120). The bill cannot be withdrawn because it has created a new instrument which has authorized a referendum,” he said.

Prof. Asare added “terminating the Referendum at this point in time does not make sense to anybody who understands the rule of law. It is too late in the day to halt the process.“civilian government cannot just call off the referendum. It is a military government that can do so and so the president did not have the right to call off the referendum.”

The president on Sunday night in an address to the state directed the local government minister to withdraw the bills seeking to make changes to some entrenched provisions of the constitution to enable Ghanaians elect their MMDCEs.

The directive meant that the December 17 referendum to decide on political parties’ involvement in local level polls has also been put on freeze.