Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party Freddie, Blay has called for the law protecting coup makers to be expunged from the 1992 constitution.
He said the call for the removal of the clauses in the 1992 constitution is not to open the gates for the trial of acts of subversion that dominate Ghana’s 61-year political history.
It should be removed to serve as a warning for any future coup makers that the constitution shall be no shield for subversion.
He was speaking to Raymond Acquah following the airing of a Joy News Special Assignment ‘Who killed the judges’ which goes back to June 1982 when Ghana was under military rule.
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Three High court judges, Justices Poku Sarkodie, Mrs. Cecelia Koranteng-Addow and Kwadwo Adjei Agyepong and a retired army officer, Major Samuel Acquah (rtd), were shot dead in the night by loyalists of the PNDC headed by Flt. Lt. Rawlings.
Photo: The murdered judges
Lawyer Sam Okudzeto kept a list of missing persons believed to have been killed during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era.
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That era ended with the 1992 constitution coming into force to herald a return to democratic rule in Ghana that continues to endure after 25 years.
But the new chapter was opened by inserting at least four articles into the constitution known as indemnity clauses. It is an elaborate provision that denies Parliament the power to amend the articles.
The clauses also stop the courts from ever opening the pages of Ghana’s dark history of military overthrows by the National Liberation Council in 1966, the National Redemption Council in 1972, the Supreme Military Council in 1975 and 1978, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in 1979 and the Provisional National Defence Council in 1981.
Former President Jerry John Rawlings remains the only surviving coup maker in Ghana after Colonel E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa, Lieutenant Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, were all killed.
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Freddie Blay who was the lawyer for one of the suspects in the murder of the High Court judges in 1982 insisted, the removal of such immunity will prevent the illegal overthrow of governments.
“I would have loved to have it completely expunged,” he said, joining the line of advocates which include a member of the Council of State, Sam Okudzeto in 2011, and the Center for Democratic Development (CDD) in 2010.
But these calls will not find favour with Ghana’s Constitution Review Commission (CRC) set up in 2010 to gather Ghanaian views on areas under the 1992 constitution which should be reviewed.
The Commission in its report said the indemnity clauses ought to be maintained.
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Albert Fiadjoe, said the clauses in the Transitional provisions have been helpful in promoting reconciliation.
“If you remove them what help does it bring to the nation, and if you retain them what harm does it cause the nation,” he was reported to have said in August 2012.
Freddie is being disingenous because the threat of coup making is long dead.