“We are very good at turning our institutions into chieftaincies and public duty into performance.”
Start with Parliament’s Appointments Committee. Every MP on that committee is constitutionally equal. But what do we see? A strange code where non-ranking members get only two questions, and even that is subject to the Chairman’s mercy.
Meanwhile, the Chairman and Ranking Member enjoy unlimited time, unlimited questions and often use it to sermonize instead of scrutinize, to posture instead of probe. Pettiness replaces substance. Performance replaces accountability.
The rest of the committee? Reduced to legislative spectators, watching their leaders put on a show while the real work of vetting is sidelined.
When an MP dares to probe too deeply, the Chairman quickly steps in, like a headmaster silencing a noisy pupil.
“Overruled.” “Hearsay.” “Irrelevant.” “Asked already.” The Chairman barks, as if presiding over a courtroom, with MPs cast as junior lawyers fumbling through cross-examination.
But this isn’t a courtroom. It’s Parliament. And MPs are not there to be disciplined; they are there to scrutinize nominees on behalf of the Republic.
They are not operating under the Civil Procedure Rules or the Evidence Act. They are not bound by courtroom etiquette or trial strategy.
Their obligation is to the public interest, not to procedural decorum.
Yet the vetting process has become so over-lawyered and over-managed, it now mimics a trial, without the protections of one, and without the consequences of failure.
That’s not oversight. That’s stage-managed approval. And it’s all justified in the name of internal arrangements, decorum, and respect.
This is how culture kills the Constitution, quietly, politely, and completely.
The same thing happens at the Supreme Court. Our Constitution says all justices are equal. But in practice, the Chief Justice assigns panels, and associate justices fall in line. Why? Respect for the “boss.” Tradition over transparency.
In Cabinet, ministers rarely challenge the President. Not because they agree but because culture frowns on “talking back.”
On public boards, members defer to CEOs as if they were clan heads. Parliamentary committees nod through proposals like palace courtiers, not lawmakers. An MP will gladly vote for a proposal that is clearly inimical to his constituents’ interests because the party says so!
Instead of upholding the constitutional principles of equality, transparency, and accountability, we bow to rank, seniority, and hierarchy.
We are very good at turning our institutions into chieftaincies and public duty into performance.
So when MPs are silenced in committee rooms, when judges cower in conference rooms, when ministers bite their tongues at the Cabinet table, what we’re witnessing is not civility. It is institutional collapse disguised as cultural respect.
We must stop pretending this is harmless. Culture is beautiful but it becomes dangerous when it overrides law.
A Constitution ruled by hierarchy is a Constitution ignored.
And when public officeholders forget they serve the people, not the party, not the chief, not the Chairman, then governance becomes a performance, not a duty.
This is not a call for rudeness. It is a call for constitutional courage.
Because if we don’t draw the line between tradition and tyranny, between protocol and power, then the Constitution will remain a document we praise but never practice.
PS: Yɛde post no bɛto hɔ. Yɛnyɛ comprehension consultants.
Da Yie!
*Prof Stephen Kwaku Asare, aka Kwaku Azar, is a United States–based Ghanaian legal scholar and practitioner.
