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Renowned investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni, has berated the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for not adequately performing its mandate.

According to him, CHRAJ, even though has been given the powers by Ghana’s Constitution to hold persons in public office accountable, it has on some occasions failed the country.

Speaking at a Public Forum on the declaration of assets in Accra, Manasseh said that the failure of CHRAJ to declare that Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa, unfit for office after it received complaints about their asset declaration, is the reason the two are in office today.

“When we talk about leadership; we shouldn’t limit it to only political leadership. There are certain individuals in this country who are very powerful and the constitution has made them so. But they have decided to become very powerless. And they have failed the state when it matters most, one of them is CHRAJ.

“CHRAJ has done well in some of the cases that have gone before it. But in others, CHRAJ failed the nation.

“One of them has to do with the complaints against the Chief Justice. CHRAJ ruled that the PPA board chair cannot hold public office for 2 years because he failed to declare his assets. Similar complaints come against the Chief Justice and also the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission but CHRAJ's rulings were very problematic.

“I don’t think that we will be having some of these names if the Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana was declared unfit to hold public office by CHRAJ,” he said.

He intimated that should CHRAJ have ruled that the current Chief Justice is unfit for office and President Nana Addo Danka Akufo-Addo chooses to ignore its ruling, the pressure on him will force him not to take the position.

“A similar thing happened with the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission and we didn’t find CHRAG having the balls to make the right pronouncement,” he added.

The forum was organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa on Tuesday, October 2, 2022.