Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine has inaugurated an 11-member Constitution Review Implementation Committee tasked with translating the government’s position paper on constitutional reform into actual amendment bills, setting a target of laying the first non-entrenched provisions before Parliament by November this year.
The committee, chaired by Presidential Legal Counsel and former Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, follows directly from the government’s position paper on the recommendations of the Constitution Review Committee chaired by Professor H. Kwesi Prempeh, which President Mahama established last year.
Its formation moves the constitutional review process from recommendation to drafting, with Dr Ayine setting a deliberately compressed timeline for the committee’s first output. Dr Ayine was explicit about both the political balance and the urgency built into the committee’s design.
“Your task is deliberately bipartisan and deliberately time-bound,” he said at the swearing-in ceremony, confirming that he expects the first set of non-entrenched constitutional amendment bills to be laid before Parliament in November. He said substantial preparatory work already underpins that timeline.
Beyond the government’s position paper itself, Dr Ayine disclosed that officials have prepared what he called a zero draft, a working document reflecting the recommendations the government has accepted outright and those it has accepted with modifications, which will be submitted to the committee as a starting point for its drafting work.
Who Sits on the Committee
Alongside Appiah-Oppong as Chair, the committee comprises Deputy Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Hon. Dr Justice Srem Sai, Deputy Finance Minister, Hon. Thomas Ampem Nyarko, former Electoral Commissioner, Ms Charlotte Osei, and legal practitioner Dr Rainer Akumperigya.
Other members include Hon. Emelia Ankomah as Majority representative, Hon. Kwame Ayimadu Antwi as Minority representative, Mr Samuel Passah as Local Government representative, Private Legal Practitioner and Activist Oliver Barker-Vormawor as Secretary, Ms Salamatu Iliasu as Draftsperson, and Mr Eric Owusu-Mensah as Parliament’s representative.
The committee’s brief is to examine the government’s position paper together with the Constitution Review Committee’s report and develop a comprehensive implementation framework. Government has reiterated its commitment to an inclusive and transparent process reflecting the aspirations of the Ghanaian people while strengthening democratic governance.
Barker-Vormawor Accepts a “National Assignment”
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the committee’s Secretary, confirmed his appointment in a personal statement, describing the role as a national assignment requiring him to provide technical support toward implementing the constitutional amendment proposals.
He situated the appointment within a much longer personal history with constitutional reform, noting that he first joined the Constitution Review Commission 17 years ago as its youngest research lead at age 22, and has remained committed to constitutional reform ever since.
Barker-Vormawor was candid that the current process falls short of the more ambitious goal he and Democracy Hub continue to pursue. “Myself and Democracy Hub subscribe fully to the creed that the Republic must inch towards a New Constitution for a New Generation,” he wrote, adding that he believes fully in that project even as he acknowledged it remains deferred for lack of political consensus.
He described the current committee’s work as only half the journey, but argued that incremental progress does not undermine the larger commitment. “My colleagues at Democracy Hub consider this as just the beginning of their long-standing campaign and not the end,” he wrote. “I subscribe to that creed; and our advocacy continues.”
A Process Anchored by Successive Technocratic Committees
Barker-Vormawor placed the current committee within a lineage of constitutional review bodies he said have consistently been led by credible technical figures rather than purely political appointees.
He traced that lineage from the Professor Fiadjoe and Atuguba Committee, through the Prempeh and Akumperigya Committee, to the present Brew and Barker-Vormawor Committee, framing the continuity of respected technocrats across each iteration as grounds for cautious optimism that this attempt will succeed where full constitutional overhaul has so far stalled. “May this attempt succeed,” he wrote.
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