The President has very little discretion – JUSAG explains why strike continues
by Miss Naa · MyNewsGh.comGeneral Secretary of the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG), Abdulai Yakubu, has insisted that President John Mahama has very little room to exercise discretion over the approval of outstanding allowances for judicial service staff, arguing that the payments are governed by law.
Mr Yakubu said the association was maintaining its strike because some of the outstanding matters submitted to the President for approval were not issues on which he could independently decide whether or not to comply.
He explained that the Judicial Council’s advice to the President on the workers’ conditions of service was regulated by law, limiting the extent of discretion available to the President.
“The advice of the Judicial Council to the President is not one in which the President can have so much discretion once the law has regulated how that discretion should be exercised,” he said.
According to him, Article 296 of the Constitution requires discretion to be exercised judiciously and not arbitrarily, while regulations have been established to guide decisions concerning the conditions of service of Judicial Service workers.
He said the Judicial Service Terms and Conditions of Service Regulations had been passed into law to regulate the process, meaning the President could not act contrary to the provisions.
“The President cannot exercise that discretion contrary to the regulation which has been properly made,” Mr Yakubu stated on Joy News.
He maintained that once the matter reached the Presidency, approval should be granted for payments that were legally due to the workers.
“Where he has no discretion, the approval would have been given for payments to be made,” he said.
Mr Yakubu added that the association would not call off its strike while the outstanding issues remained unresolved, insisting that the President was required to comply with the law rather than choose which provisions to implement.
“We are holding on to the strike because parts of what has not yet been approved for us are matters in which, in our humble view, the President does not have discretion to pick and choose. It just has to be complied with because it is a matter of law,” he said.
Source: MyNewsGh.com
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