Kwaku Azar reacts to Supreme Court ruling for dual citizens to hold key positions

A lawyer named Bright Otchere Agyekum filed the action in the Supreme Court challenging sections of the Citizenship Acts 2000, which prohibited certain persons from having access to high offices.

Mr Bright argued that those specific acts in Section 16 of the Citizenship Acts 2000 clearly contravened the 1992 Constitution, for which reason he and his team of lawyers wanted the Supreme Court to strike them down as unconstitutional.

It took some back and forth in the Supreme Court as Mr Agyekum and his team made their point about why they believed that these sections of the Citizenship Acts were unconstitutional and had to be struck out.

Reacting to the Supreme Court ruling on JoyNews on Thursday, April 25, Prof Asare said this is a battle that has been waged since 2006, stating that he has always had problems with the way the court and the country interpreted Article 94(2)(a) and also Article 8(2) of the constitution.

He noted that Article 94(2)(a) has not been touched by the court after its decision to strike out section 16 of the Citizenship Acts as unconstitutional.

The CDD Fellow explained that the Supreme Court has only struck out Section 16(2) of the Citizenship Act that he had previously raised a similar issue in court where he argued that it was unconstitutional for Parliament to add offices without specifically amending the constitution.

Supreme Court rules on appointment of persons with dual citizenship as Chief Justice, Directors