The constitutional case now before Ghana’s Supreme Court is not simply a dispute about institutional design. It is, at its core, a challenge to whether Parliament had the authority to build an anti-corruption body the way it did, and whether years of prosecutions may now rest on uncertain legal ground.
The action, filed as Adamtey v. Attorney-General, Suit No. J1/3/2026, was initiated by private legal practitioner Noah Ephraem Tetteh Adamtey. But the Attorney-General’s office, through Deputy Attorney-General Dr Justice Srem-Sai, has filed submissions on April 8, 2026, that substantively support the plaintiff’s central argument rather than defend the existing law. Understanding what exactly the Attorney-General is arguing, and what follows if he wins, is essential to grasping the full weight of what is unfolding.
The constitutional anchor for the challenge is Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution, which designates the Attorney-General as the principal legal advisor to government and gives that office responsibility for the initiation and conduct of all prosecutions in the name of the Republic. Article 88(4) permits delegation of this prosecutorial authority, but only to persons or authorities acting under the Attorney-General’s direct supervision.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959) was enacted to give the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) independent prosecutorial powers over corruption-related offences, with section 4(2) of the Act providing that the OSP may prosecute subject to authorisation from the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General’s case, however, is that what the law says on paper and how the OSP has operated in practice are two different things. His submissions argue that since the OSP’s establishment in 2018, the office has investigated and prosecuted offences without consistently obtaining the constitutionally required authorisation from the Attorney-General.
The challenge rests on four interrelated arguments. The first is that prosecutorial authority is exclusively vested in the Attorney-General under the Constitution and cannot be redistributed by ordinary legislation. The second is that section 4(2) of Act 959, by using the word “shall,” compels the Attorney-General to grant authorisation to the OSP, which the Attorney-General argues unconstitutionally removes the discretion that Article 88 gives that office. The third is that Parliament has no authority to vary constitutional powers through ordinary legislation without amending the Constitution itself. The fourth is that prosecutorial power, being a constitutional function, can only be delegated to natural persons acting under the Attorney-General, not to a juridical entity such as the OSP operating independently.
The reliefs being sought are correspondingly significant. The Attorney-General is asking the Supreme Court to declare that Parliament varied the Attorney-General’s constitutional prosecutorial powers through ordinary legislation in a manner the Constitution does not permit, that Parliament thereby exceeded its legislative authority, and that section 4(2) of Act 959 is unconstitutional and void to the extent of its inconsistency with the 1992 Constitution.
If the court grants those reliefs, the downstream consequences could be substantial. Every prosecution that the OSP has commenced without prior written authorisation from the Attorney-General would become vulnerable to jurisdictional challenge. Accused persons in such cases would have reasonable grounds to argue that the proceedings against them were initiated without constitutional authority. Courts would then face the difficult question of whether those prosecutions are void from the outset, or whether they can be preserved under doctrines that protect acts carried out under apparent legal authority.
A strict constitutional reading could result in charges being struck out entirely. A more pragmatic judicial approach might preserve existing prosecutions by applying any ruling only going forward. Either way, prolonged uncertainty in pending corruption cases raises its own set of concerns, including the right to trial within a reasonable time under Article 19 of the Constitution.
If existing OSP prosecutions are invalidated, the Attorney-General’s office would need to assume direct control and re-initiate proceedings, a process that invites delay, evidentiary complications, and potential arguments that the right to a fair hearing has been compromised.
At an institutional level, a ruling in the Attorney-General’s favour would effectively re-centralise prosecutorial authority, reducing the OSP from an independent enforcement body to either an investigative agency or a prosecutorial unit that acts only on the specific fiat of the Attorney-General for each case. This would fundamentally alter the independence that the OSP was designed to embody, an independence that its architects argued was essential precisely because corruption cases frequently involve politically exposed individuals whose prosecution a presidential appointee might be institutionally reluctant to pursue.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, whenever it comes, will not merely resolve a dispute between two state institutions. It will define the constitutional limits of Parliament’s power to design anti-corruption architecture and determine whether Ghana’s flagship prosecutorial independence experiment survives in its current form.
