Lawyer sues AG, GRA Boss over powers to tax travellers’ phones, personal effects at Airport

2514 purports to authorise the Commissioner-General, or officers of the Customs Division acting under the Commissioner-General’s authority, to grant or withhold the exemption under section 17(1) of Act 1083 to individual passengers on a case-by-case discretionary basis without prior parliamentary approval by resolution under Article 174(2), and in the absence of any resolution of Parliament under Article 174(3) exempting the exercise of that power from the requirements of Article 174(2), Regulation 18(2)(b) is inconsistent with, and to the extent of the inconsistency is void under, Article 1(2) of the Constitution.

Reliefs Sought Against this background, the Plaintiff is seeking the following from the Supreme Court: A declaration that, upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 174(1) and (2) of the 1992 Constitution, the power conferred on the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority under Regulation 18(2)(b) of the Exemptions Regulations, 2025 (L.2514), made pursuant to section 17(3) of the Exemptions Act, 2022 (Act 1083), to determine, without further recourse to Parliament, the quantity of baggage of a passenger that is exempt from customs duties and customs taxes, constitutes an exercise of a power to waive or vary a tax in favour of individual persons or authorities, which power has not been, and in its ordinary administrative operation is not, subjected to the prior approval of Parliament by resolution as required by Article 174(2) of the Constitution.