US-based Ghanaian Professor of Accounting and Lawyer, Stephen Kwaku Asare, widely known as Kwaku Azar has registered his disagreement over the Supreme Court ruling on James Gyakye Quayson’s citizenship case.
According to Prof. Kwaku Azar, the ruling of the Apex Court is the worst case he has ever seen in the history of Ghana.
Speaking on Accra-based Citi TV, Professor Kwaku Azar explained that the ruling that declared the 2020 Parliamentary Election of Assin North null and void is full of errors and inconsistencies.
He further noted that the judges misinterpreted the 1992 Constitution and shredded the statutes about citizenship and allegiance. To him, the judgement appeared that there was a deliberate attempt to haul James Gyakye Quayson from parliament through either fair or foul means.
He said “of all the Ghanaian cases I have seen, this one stands out as almost the worst, because when you read the case, there is a plethora of errors. From misinterpreting the Constitution to shredding statutes to inserting timelines where there are no timelines. It’s almost as if the court decided we are going to remove this guy [Quayson] for whatever reason. And we don’t care how many laws we break or how many rules we violate. We are going to do it anyway,”
He explained that a person can owe allegiance to a country for a variety of reasons.
“It’s almost like me saying that allegiance and citizenship are inexplicably tied, so when the president swears the oath of allegiance, he’s swearing the oath of citizenship. That is completely bizarre. I have never heard such strange reasoning. One can owe allegiance to a country for a variety of reasons, citizenship is only one of them. People who are not citizens owe allegiance to the country, because they must follow the rules, the government must protect them. We call that local allegiance. When the president swears the oath of allegiance, he’s swearing an occupation-related allegiance,” he avowed.
