Former Member of Parliament and lawyer, Inusah Fuseini, says President Nana Akufo-Addo must face the consequences of his constitutional violations.
This comes on the back of the Supreme Court ruling that the president’s decision to force former Auditor General, Daniel Domelovo to go on leave is unconstitutional.
According to Mr Fuseini, the president’s action was a fundamental breach of the Constitution and in violation of his presidential oath, therefore he must be subject to impeachment.
He maintained that presidents should be prosecuted if their actions violate the Constitution or their presidential oath.
“He must suffer the penalty for that. Until we begin to hold our presidents accountable, and not give excuses for their acts of impunity, then we are not going to make progress. That’s why I don’t think that this decision [Supreme Court’s ruling] must be prospective,” he emphasised while speaking on Newsfile on Saturday.
Mr Fuseini also asserted that the president acted willfully and he was reckless in the decision he took to force Mr Domelovo to go on leave.
Per his explanation, the president’s attention was drawn to the potential unconstitutional nature of his decision in regards to Mr Domelovo, yet he acted with impunity and decided to ignore the counsel he was given.
Consequently, Mr Fuseini stressed the importance of impeaching the president to discourage future presidents from acting with impunity.
“That is why we must take consequential action on the president so that future presidents will know that if they violate the constitution with impunity, they will suffer the consequence.
But the Former Deputy Attorney-General, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, a fellow panelist on the show, contended that Mr Fuseini’s assertion was inaccurate because the president did not act willfully.
Mr Kpemka justified that President Akufo-Addo when writing the letter asking for the former Auditor-General to resign, was exercising his executive power vested in him by the constitution.
He emphasised that “precedents guide governance… And at the time of writing the letter, the president was exercising his executive power which is given to him by the constitution, and he did it knowing very well in him that what he was doing was right, and in consonance and in all force with the constitution, which has later been declared null and void.”
He subsequently asked that “Are you able to establish that at the time of writing this particular letter asking the person to proceed on leave, the president was deliberate and willful, and knew that what he was doing was unconstitutional and went ahead to do it?”
Mr Kpemka also maintained that he did not consider what the president did to be a basis to trigger his impeachment.
His reasoning was that Akufo-Addo’s action was in the best interest of the country.
