Accra, Nov 1, GNA - Mr. Kyeretwie Opoku, a Legal Practitioner on Wednesday said it was important that institutions like the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) were developing socio-economic rights orientation to their work to check abuse of rights not contained in the constitution.
He said the response to the blatant disregard for rights and concerns of communities affected by mining would only work if they were based on a collective response to the rights of the people and gave meaning to the provisions of the constitution.
=93If we do not innovate and develop class-based responses to these problems, based on the recognition of collective development rights, then the constitution may cease to be the framework which ordinary people can use to advance their crucial claims for a more just social organization," Mr Opoku said.
Mr. Opoku made the point in a paper he presented at a two-day second Annual Human Rights Lectures, organized jointly in Accra by the CHRAJ, the Ghana Bar Association and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, a civil society group.
Mr Opoku spoke on "Protection of Socio-Economic Rights of Mining Communities" in Ghana.
He complained about the systematic illegal but unpunished use of violence against communities by mining company officials, their security contractors and officers of the Ghana Police and Ghana Armed Forces. Mr Opoku, who is also the Co-coordinator of Civic Response, said apart from such abuses including the harassment of local critics of practices by mining companies, operation of private prisons by some mining companies, there were also illegal arrests and detention of community members who were tortured and detained.
The lecture was full of instances of gross human rights abuses, including murder and interference with the citizens' constitutional rights to publicly protest against the negative impact of mining companies.
He said very little had been achieved from Ghana's sustained mining boom, and the nation had not yet been able to translate the wealth from mining into building the productive capacity of the local capacity of the local communities and the country as a whole. Mr Opoku reiterated class action to garner resources to fight in the interest of the mining communities and to sustain court actions over several years.
Mrs. Sheila Menka-Pre mo, Executive Director of Apex Law Consult, speaking on "Realising Cultural Rights in Ghana - Prospects and Challenges," said cultural rights could be used to train in traditional disciplines, mobilize people for communal development; resolve conflicts and promote environmental preservation. She however, regretted the abuse of the rights of women in the forms of abusive widowhood rites, female genital mutilation and the intestate succession.
