The Republican Constitution of Ghana

In March, 1960, the Government of Ghana presented for the consideration of the people of Ghana and the National Assembly, sitting as a Constituent Assembly, its proposals for a Republican Constitution. In a plebiscite held last April, the principles of the new Constitution were approved by a great majority. In May, the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers met in London; it agreed to the continued membership of the Republic of Ghana in the Commonwealth. On June 29, 1960, the Constituent Assembly enacted the new Constitution which came into effect on July 1, 1960. Ghana, within a very few years, has undergone the transformation from the status of a British dependency-the Gold Coast-and a United Nations Trust Territory-Togoland under British administrationrespectively, to that of a sovereign, independent State. This transformation was achieved in accordance with the processes designed for such changes. Ghana first attained independence as a Member of the Commonwealth by achieving what until quite recently used to be called Dominion status. English law and British constitutional conventions and traditions were the foundations upon which the structure of the new State was erected. Now it has given itself a new Constitution which, in the words of the White Paper by which it was laid before Parliament and the people, is not copied from the Constitution of any other country. It has been designed to meet the particular needs of Ghana and to express the realities of Ghana's constitutional position. Before we describe the procedure by which the new Constitution was brought into being and proceed to the examination of its important features, a few remarks on the wider framework of the (British) Commonwealth of Nations and on the predecessor of the new Constitution, the Constitution of 1957, will be in order.