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Opinions of Saturday, 27 April 2013

Columnist: Pobee-Mensah, Tony

Can Prez Mahama sign laws?

Though our laws are mostly hand-me-downs from the Britons, the democracy that we claim to have emulates American system of democracy not the British. I am saying this for one simple reason: Britain is a constitutional monarchy state and we are not. We are more like the American system at least as we have practiced our democracy thus far.

This begs the question whether or not President Mahama, who by American system of government would not have any constitutional authority to sign any law, can sign laws passed by our parliament. It may sound trivial to ask this question at a glance until you take an in-depth look at the implications.

The act of passing a budget is an act of law. The president submits his proposed budget to the "parliament" and the parliament does with it what it wants. In the end what comes out is a law passed by the parliament and sign by a president whose legitimacy is being questioned right now.

If the Supreme Court rules that President Mahama did not win the election of 2012 then do we throw away anything that he has signed? What about the money he has spent as the current President? In 50, 80, or 100 years from now can someone go to court and argue that a law that he is being charged with is not a legitimate law because the President who signed it was not a legitimate President voted in by the people of Ghana and thus the law should be thrown out?

In the future, this seeming trivial matter may not be so trivial. We the people of today should be thinking so much of the precedence that we are setting and our leaders and the learned men and women do not seem to discuss these issues. If our democracy matures, it will be so easy for these issues to become huge.

Documents and precedence of many hundred years ago still control what America and law makers of America can or cannot do. This precedence that we are setting today can in the future allow a politician and his crony who may be the head of the Electoral Commission plot to declare and swear in the politician in a much disputed election arguing that the courts will settle the dispute later. The person could in turn make laws that favor him in many ways.

What we do today should be looked with the future in mind not our politics.