MARTIN KPEBU v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL

JUDGMENT

AKAMBA, JSC:

BACKGROUND

Following the adoption of the Constitution of Ghana in 1993, it was considered necessary to clean the statute books of obsolete and unwanted pieces of legislation and to among others, rationalize the titling of legislation in order to bring them in line with the new constitutional democracy.

This was the justification for the bill by which the Statute Law Revision Project (SLRP) was passed in 1998. (See Vol 20 No 23 Parliamentary Debates of 18th December 1998). The Statute Law Revision Commissioner (SLRC) (hereafter simply referred to as Commissioner) was given very far reaching powers to rewrite all the laws in plain English, to bring the language in line with current usage and to be in conformity with the Constitution. The full extent of the powers given the Commissioner would be discussed in this judgment. Ten years after the initiation of the project, seven revised volumes of the ‘Laws of Ghana (Revised Edition)’ were put before Parliament and adopted en masse or en bloc on 14th December 2006. They are however deemed to have come into force on 31st December 2004 as indicated in Volume 1 of the Laws of Ghana (Revised Edition).

Since the adoption of the new volumes, the plaintiff herein has some misgivings about certain changes in the resultant compilations. The plaintiff consequently issued a writ on 9th January 2015 invoking this court’s original jurisdiction for the redress of his concerns as per the reliefs sought.

The reliefs sought by the plaintiff are as follows:

(i) “A declaration that the powers granted the Law Review Commissioner under section 2 of the Laws of Ghana (Revised Edition) Act, 1998 (Act 562) to “make adaptations of and amendments to Acts in order to bring those Acts into conformity with the Constitution of Ghana, 1992” does not include the power to make alterations of substance, and therefore the omission of marital consent as a defence for the use of force in section 42 (g) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960, (Act 29) is null, void and of no effect for being contrary to article 93 (2) of the Constitution, 1992.

(ii) A declaration that the Constitution (1992) vests legislative power in Parliament and the amendment made to section 42 (g) of Act 29 is null, void and of no effect as it usurps the powers that the 1992 Constitution expressly, exclusively and specifically conferred to Parliament under 93 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.

(iii) A declaration that the statement by the Statute Law Revisi