Implementing Ghana’s Constitutional Reform Agenda: Between Public Consensus and Government Power
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Ghana’s constitutional reform process has entered a critical new phase following the government’s response to the Constitution Review Committee’s recommendations and the establishment of an implementation committee. While the reforms offer an opportunity to address longstanding concerns over executive power, checks and balances, and local governance, the government’s departures from the CRC’s proposals have raised questions about the inclusiveness and legitimacy of the process. In this piece, Victor Nsoh Azure examines the government’s position and the debates surrounding the path ahead.
When Ghana’s Constitution Review Committee (CRC) submitted its report to the government in December 2025, it renewed hopes that long-debated constitutional reforms would finally be implemented. In July 2026, after reviewing the report, the government issued its Position Paper which outlines the CRC recommendations it accepted, rejected, or accepted with modifications. The government’s Position Paper also introduced new proposals and set out a legislative checklist to pursue some proposals that it accepted only in principle through statutory reform.
In August 2026, the government established a Constitution Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) tasked with “translating the recommendations accepted by government into lawful, coherent and practical measures capable of implementation.” The CRIC is an eleven-member committee chaired by Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, Ghana’s former Attorney General and current Counsel to Ghana’s President. It includes members of Parliament from the majority and minority caucuses, government ministers, two former members of the CRC, and civil society representatives. The government’s response and the establishment of the CRIC marked the start of the implementation phase of Ghana’s efforts to significantly reform the 1992 Constitution, which has undergone only one minor amendment in 1996.
The CRC was an advisory committee to the government; therefore, its recommendations are not binding. However, by 2024, growing discontent with governance in Ghana, rooted in the bad incentives created by the structure of government, including the concentration of power in the presidency, weak checks and balances, and winner-takes-all politics, brought the case for reform to the forefront of the general election campaign. President Mahama ran on a promise of constitutional reform and later committed to fully implementing the CRC proposals. Many observers saw it as a chance to finally implement perennial proposals, such as greater separation of powers and popular elections of local government, some of which had been considered in the stalled 2010 Constitution Review Process.
Yet by modifying or discarding several CRC recommendations that enjoyed popular support and by introducing reforms outside the scope of the CRC report, the government has turned what many stakeholders hoped would be a consensus-building process into one it dominates through its control over implementation.
The Constitutional Review Committee Project
President Mahama established the CRC in January 2025 to undertake “a comprehensive review of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution with the objective of identifying constitutional gaps, weaknesses, and design features that undermine effective governance, accountability, inclusion and national development.” The Committee completed its task and submitted its report, titled “Transforming Ghana: From Electoral Democracy to a Developmental Democracy,” including over a hundred individual recommendations for amendment across several chapters of the Constitution.
In the report, the CRC proposed realigning the branches of government and ensuring effective checks and balances. It suggested doing that by amending the Constitution to prevent sitting members of Parliament from serving as ministers in the executive branch, capping the number of ministers the President could appoint, and curbing the President's control over the public service, state-owned enterprises, independent accountability institutions, law enforcement agencies, and local government administration.
Regarding Parliament, it proposed strengthening legislative oversight by making parliamentary censure grounds for removing a minister. Within the judiciary, it recommended limiting the Chief Justice's administrative and discretionary powers, including the power to empanel and transfer judges. It also proposed capping the number of Supreme Court justices, improving transparency in judicial appointments, establishing new independent constitutional bodies and making existing ones more independent.
Beyond rebalancing the arms of government, the CRC offered a raft of proposals to improve governance. For example, it recommended shifting from decentralization to asymmetric devolution to make local governance more responsive and effective. On security, it also proposed a new, independent security oversight body to oversee civilian-facing security services. On the economy, it proposed a new fiscal council, a constitutional debt ceiling, and more independence for the central bank. It also recommended tightening legislative oversight of loans and international business transactions involving the state. Crucially, the CRC proposed a citizen-led mechanism for future constitutional amendment in which citizens could trigger Parliament to consider amending a non-entrenched provision by acquiring enough signatures—five percent, with gender and geographic quotas.
The Government Position Paper
The government’s Position Paper was significantly less ambitious than the CRC report. It stressed the need for caution in adopting constitutional amendments and expressed reluctance to entrench additional institutions in the Constitution because of their potential fiscal costs.
The government accepted the CRC proposal to make legislative censure a ground for removing a minister. It also accepted the cap on the number of ministers and the proposal to extend the terms of office of the President and members of Parliament from four to five years, which would not apply to the current officeholders. The government also adopted the citizen mechanism for future constitutional changes but rejected the proposed mandatory constituent assembly.
However, it rejected the proposal to introduce a strict separation of powers between the executive and legislature and instead expanded the President’s discretion to appoint ministers from inside or outside Parliament. The government’s Position Paper also dismissed measures to reduce the Chief Justice's administrative powers over the judiciary, such as his sitting on lower-court benches, on the grounds that this provides flexibility.
On proposals to curb the imperial presidency, the government broadly rejected recommendations to remove presidential control over the appointments and discipline of constitutional office holders. It also turned down proposals for a more transparent process for filling judicial vacancies and for expanding the Council of State’s role in filling constitutional offices, arguing that existing rules are adequate. Citing a lack of justification or statutory reform as an alternative, the government also rejected proposed new independent constitutional bodies, such as the Devolution Commission for local government reform and the Independent Registrar and Regulator of Political Parties and Campaigns.
In some proposals that the government accepted with modifications, the changes it introduced were so extensive that they essentially amounted to rewriting the CRC proposals. For instance, on local government reform, the government replaced the CRC's recommendation for free, non-partisan elections with a proposal in which the President would determine the list of candidates eligible to stand for election to local government leadership.
The government also rejected proposals to address identified weaknesses in the governance of various sectors, including a proposed new Independent Security Services Oversight Commission to ensure non-political supervision of civilian-facing security forces, and additional fiscal management rules such as central bank independence, a debt ceiling, and limits on central bank advances to the government. Instead, it proposed addressing these through statutory reform.
The Public Response to the Government Position Paper
The government’s Position Paper prompted a wide range of reactions from different stakeholders. The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) asked the government to resist a one-sided approach and consult widely to deliver meaningful reforms. The IEA also disagreed with some of the government’s positions, such as on local government reform, calling on it to adopt the CRC’s recommendations instead. The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) raised similar concerns, arguing that democratic accountability requires citizens to choose their own local leaders. Likewise, the Center for Democratic Development (CDD) criticized the government’s stance, calling on it to reconsider and possibly return to the CRC’s recommendation for non-partisan local elections without presidential involvement in the selection process.
At a press conference, the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) disagreed with the government’s position on several proposals and urged it to adopt the CRC’s recommendations on separation of powers, local government, and reforming the Council of State, among others. The TUC also criticized the Position Paper for nit-picking proposals, such as extending the terms of office of the president and members of Parliament from four to five years, because these were intended to go with other proposals like a strong and independent Parliament, which the government has rejected. It argued that piecemeal acceptance of holistic proposals undermines the underlying reform rationale.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ghana's leading opposition party, supports a range of proposals from both the CRC report and the Position Paper, including separation of powers, independent accountability institutions, and capping the number of Supreme Court justices. However, it also rejects several government proposals to reform local government, extend the tenure of office for the President and MPs, and increase the number of seats in Parliament. It also opposes introducing term limits for future Chief Justices. Nevertheless, the party rejected the government’s plan to move forward with the reform process through the CRIC and instead called for a Consultative Assembly to consider the reform proposals. The NPP made it clear it would boycott any referendum on constitutional amendments unless the government convenes a citizen-led Consultative Assembly to consider the proposed amendments. The Citizens Platform on Constitutional Reforms has backed the NPP's call for broader consultation, welcoming further discussion of its Consultative Assembly proposal.
The Way Forward
In setting up the CRIC, the Attorney General tasked it with producing two bills to amend both entrenched and non-entrenched provisions of the Constitution by the end of October. Amending non-entrenched provisions requires approval by a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has enough votes in Parliament to reach that threshold on its own. However, entrenched provisions, such as those concerning presidential term limits, human rights, the arms of government, security services, local government, public finance, elections, and constitutional amendment mechanisms, require a referendum in which 40 percent of registered voters must participate and the proposed amendment must receive at least 75 percent of votes in favour. The government’s Position Paper includes a little under two dozen proposals that fall under entrenched provisions, raising logistical questions about how to put them all on one reform ballot.
Without consensus, and with a major political party potentially opposing the constitutional reform process, reaching the 75 percent threshold for an amendment proposal will be an uphill task even for a popular government. President Mahama’s announcement of plans to hold a referendum together with local government elections in 2027 appears to pre-empt other stakeholders' concerns about how the process should move forward. Nonetheless, a year is ample time for the government to reach an operational consensus with stakeholders.
Conclusion
The release of the government’s Position Paper marks an important step forward in Ghana’s constitutional reform process. However, it also leaves a significant government imprint on the process, potentially undermining its legitimacy. While the CRC’s recommendations are not binding and the government is entitled to determine which proposals to sponsor, constitutional reform is ultimately a process of brokering a settlement among divergent interests. The high referendum threshold is intended to ensure that only proposals enjoying broad public support are adopted, rather than simply those favoured by the government. To secure broad public support, the government will have to either convince dissenters of the merits of its positions or accommodate some of their concerns by softening its stance. Either way, the success or failure of Ghana’s current reform moment may depend on whether the government views constitutional reform as an exercise of political power or as an inclusive process in which it is only one actor among many.
About the Author
Victor Nsoh Azure is a Ghanaian lawyer and public policy analyst whose work focuses on constitutional law, governance, institutional design, and political economy. He has worked on constitutional reform and public policy in Ghana. He recently graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law as a Fulbright Scholar, pursuing an LL.M. with concentrations in Constitutional and International Law.
Suggested Citation
Victor Nsoh Azure, ‘Implementing Ghana’s Constitutional Reform Agenda: Between Public Consensus and Government Power', ConstitutionNet, International IDEA, 1 October 2026, https://constitutionnet.org/news/voices/implementing-ghanas-constitutional-reform-agenda