The Parliament of Ghana has approved the report of the Constitution and Legal Affairs Committee, recommending that the Imposition of Restriction Bill 2020 is passed under a certificate of urgency.

As earlier directed by the President Akufo-Addo, government hoped to pass the law under a certificate of urgency to enable it to place more measures to tackle the spread of the coronavirus.

The Bill however, does not specifically deal with the issue of the coronavirus spread but rather seeks to broadly restrict freedom of movement.

The minority argued that the law was “vague” and could easily be misapplied by government to witch-hunt political opponents.

At a meeting of the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament on Thursday, [March 20, 2020] the NDC MPs also noted that, the Bill does not meet the requirement of urgent business.

“Those of us in the Minority are of the opinion that the Bill as presented does not demonstrate any urgency for purposes of which we have to consider it under urgent circumstances. This is because there is nowhere in the Bill that coronavirus is mentioned," South Dayi MP, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor said in an interview with Accra based Joy FM.

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The Minority member on the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs continued: “They only brought a Bill regarding broad emergency powers to be given to the President and we think that they ought to be very specific. If you enact a Bill into law, giving the president broad powers, any unscrupulous president can misapply it.”

But the Deputy Attorney-General, Joseph Kpemka, in defence of the government, said the Bill in its current state, is the best for the country but can be improved by Parliament if the House wishes.

“The president is not operating in a vacuum. He is operating within a legal framework and if we do pass this into law and implement it and anybody finds that the president is abusing the law or his discretionary power, they can go for a pronouncement by the court to declare that to the extent that the president’s conduct or actions are contrary to statutes or law of the constitution, then they are a nullity,” he explained.