Abstract
The Ghanaian Constitution Review Process represents an ambitious attempt to reshape Ghanaian democracy in the image of its ostensible sovereign. In an unprecedented consultation process Ghanaians across the country and the diaspora were asked to share their opinions on the 1992 constitution. Moving beyond the letter of the constitution which had ushered in the longest period of constitutional rule in the history of the country, the mandate of the Constitution Review Commission (CRC) expressly included the collation of submissions on legal and administrative changes Ghanaians might demand to ensure the creation of a more responsive, inclusive and equitable polity. One issue explicitly flagged for debate was the future role of Ghana’s diverse set of indigenous political institutions. The constitution review process became an arena for the renegotiation of their future role—as well as for a reassessment of their internal gendered power dynamics: Since British colonial authorities sidelined the female and augmented the male line of complementary dual hierarchies in the largest indigenous polities, the interaction between indigenous and ‘Western’-style institutions has been marked by a continued coloniality of gender and of power. Female indigenous authorities have been protesting this exclusion—and have used the constitution review process to voice their demands. They represent one set of voices that spoke loudly and clearly during the consultations. An analysis of the consultation process and the final report of the CRC examines to which extent the participants bidders have not just been invited to speak, but allowed to be heard.
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Notes
- 1.
Submissions the Ghana Constitution Review Commission received in 2010 from the general public have been anonymised. Hereinafter they are referred to as Anonymised Submission 2010.
- 2.
If postcolonial perspectives are conceptualised in this way, the rich tradition of anticolonial writing and theoretical reflection—in the territory of today’s Ghana associated with names such as Wilmot Blyden, Africanus Horton, Mensah Sarbah and other nineteenth century thinkers and activists—becomes an important part of the canon (Korang 2009).
- 3.
Tellingly, Elmina Castle is the oldest ‘modern European’ architectural structure erected outside Europe.
- 4.
While this process is far from complete, it strengthens the position of female indigenous authorities as they demand the implementation of the decision across the country. Since ahemaa have argued that they need to join the Houses to further the interests of women, their success makes it easier for women in their indigenous jurisdictions to demand just that. Given the stark gender imbalance in Ghana’s parliament, indigenous institutions can become important corrective vectors for gendered representation. This ongoing change in the statutory interface illustrates how Ghana’s plural polity creates capacities for representation, decision-making, resource allocation etc. that each subsystem would lack on their own.
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Aikins, J.K. (2016). Indigenising Democracy? Renegotiating the Role of Indigenous Political Authorities in Ghana’s Constitution Review. In: Dhawan, N., Fink, E., Leinius, J., Mageza-Barthel, R. (eds) Negotiating Normativity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30984-2_4
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