OUR RIGHTS, OUR RESPONSIBILITIES

PROFESSOR Kofi Quashigah, the acting Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon, has underlined the need for Ghanaians to know their basic rights and responsibilities in order to reduce violence and entrench the principles of democracy in the country.
Professor Quashigah’s call comes at a time when Ghanaians prepare to exercise a key democratic right by way of electing a new president and representatives to Parliament in December.
Recognition of basic rights and obligations is a civic responsibility of every Ghanaian and the pursuance of the various awareness programmes on our rights and obligations must be inspired by the saying that "ignorance of the law is no excuse".
During the just-ended voters registration exercise, reports of abuses of the process and complaints about double registration and the registration of minors were quite widespread.
Clearly, this mirrors the fact that there are still concerns about the appreciation of our rights and obligations as Ghanaians. Indeed, while many Ghanaians are quick to profess their rights under the Constitution, they fail to recognise that rights and obligations go hand-in-hand.
In many facets of life, people perpetuate indiscipline in the name of exercising their rights and sad to relate, in most of these cases the much professed rights have actually been forfeited because of the failure to act in a responsible manner or observe the attached obligations.
As Professor Quasigah rightly puts it, the notion that one needs to be called to the Bar to fully appreciate laws for everyday living is erroneous and very much misplaced. Knowledge of basic laws on the part of the citizenry to guarantee a society of peace and order is not in anyway linked to formal education in law.
Indeed, the Professor’s call raises many fundamental issues on the level of civic education in the country. Time and again, the issue of funding for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has come up and there have been suggestions that the NCCE needs to be adequately resourced to ensure that it effectively plays its role of educating Ghanaians on their civic rights and responsibilities.
The concept of civic education clubs in schools is a noble one that must be encouraged to ensure that many students join such clubs to gain the requisite education on their rights and responsibilities under the Constitution. Need we remind ourselves that in the days when Civics, Nature Studies and Hygiene were taught in our schools, the youth were more disciplined and there was order in society.
It is time to intensify education on the 1992 Constitution in our schools for students to educate themselves on their basic rights and responsibilities.
The Constitution, in an elaborate and quite exhaustive manner, outlines and explains the rights and responsibilities of the citizenry. In Article 21, the General Fundamental Freedoms are outlined and Article 41 also emphasises that "the exercise and enjoyment of rights and freedoms is inseparable from the performance of duties and obligation".
Perhaps, one often ignores obligations of Ghanaians under the Constitution as captured under Article 41 (f), which states that "it shall be the duty of every citizen to protect and preserve public property and expose and combat the misuse and waste of public funds and property".
Clearly, we are miles away from getting an appreciable level of awareness of our rights and obligations and a radical approach may have to be adopted to address the issue.