February 18, 2010
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Paramount Chiefs and sub-Chiefs from Worawora, Bowiri, Apesokubi, Tapa and Nkonya sought declarations and injunctions against Executive Instrument 11 of 2007 and Legislative Instrument 1910 of 2008 concerning the Biakoye District. They alleged the President breached section 1 of the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462) by failing to direct the Electoral Commission to conduct a study and objected to Nkonya Ahenkro being named as capital contrary to a prior gazette and a chiefs’ memorandum identifying Worawora. Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood held that LI 1910 explicitly situates the Assembly’s principal offices at Worawora, defeating the capital complaint, and that plaintiffs’ core grievance is statutory non-compliance, not constitutional inconsistency. The Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction under articles 2 and 130 is limited to enforcement/interpretation and legislative review of constitutional breaches; general references to constitutional provisions are insufficient. Justice Dotse concurred, elaborating the strict pleading standards and precedents. The Court dismissed the action for want of cognisable constitutional grounds.
WOOD (MRS), CJ:-
The Supreme Court’s exclusive power of judicial review of legislative action is exercisable under articles 2(1) and 130 (1) (b) of the 1992 Constitution. By these articles, this court has exclusive original jurisdiction in “all matters arising as to whether an enactment was made in excess of the powers conferred on Parliament or any other authority or person by law or under this Constitution.”
Article 1 (2), which unambiguously asserts the supremacy of the constitution as the fundamental law of the land provides:
“(2) The Constitution shall be the supreme law of Ghana and any other law found to be inconsistent with any provision of this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”
Again, articles 2 (1) (b) and 130 of the constitution state:
2 (1) A person who alleges that -
(a) an enactment or anything contained in or done under the authority of that or any other enactment; or
(b) any act or omission of any person;
is inconsistent with, or is in contravention of a provision of this Constitution, may bring an action in the Supreme Court for a declaration to that effect.
130.(1) Subject to the jurisdiction of the High Court in the enforcement of the Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms as provided in article 33 of this Constitution, the Supreme Court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in-
(a) all matters relating to the enforcement or interpretation of this Constitution.
(b) all matters arising as to whether an enactment was made in excess of the powers conferred on Parliament or any other authority or person by law or under this Constitution.”
In this action, the Plaintiffs, who are Paramount Chiefs and sub-Chiefs, on behalf of themselves, communities and traditional areas of Worawora, Bowiri, Apesokubi, Tapa and Nkonya, all in the Volta Region, invoke this original jurisdiction for a number of reliefs, two of which are declaratory in nature. They read:
i. “A declaration that the purported declaration by the President of Ghana of a Biakoye District by E.I. 11 of 2007 is a nullity in law by reason of failure by the President to direct the Electoral Commission to conduct a study and also to receive the findings and recommendations of such a study for his consideration before declaring the said new District in breach of Section 1 of the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462).
ii. A declaration that the L.I purporting to establish a Biakoye District Assembly together with naming of Nkonya Ahenkro as the