DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN AFRICA BEYOND ELECTIONS: A STUDY ON DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS- THE JUDICIARY IN GHANA AND KENYA

Year 2018, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 105 - 128, 10.12.2018

Ohene Agyemang Opoku

Abstract

The
third wave of democratization which hit the world led to a spontaneous wave of
democratization in most African states in the early 1990s. The reinstatement of
democratic governance brought hope and relief to most citizens. This is as a
result of the promulgation and entrenching of human rights clauses in
respective countries constitutions. There is now a clarion call for democracy
to be consolidated. It is significant to mention that Ghana and Kenya have
practiced democracy over two decades. The process of consolidating democracy
has become necessary owing to pockets and mass violence in Ghanaian and Kenyan
elections respectively. The use of minimalists’ conceptualization of measuring
democracy based on elections must be discarded and give way to the maximalists
approach. Dahl refers to this as the polyarchy of democracy. The study is
placed within the liberal democratic theory by Dahl. The central question to
ask is what roles have the judiciary played in consolidating the Ghanaian and
Kenyan democracy from its inception? This is important to address this
fundamental question in the new democracies like Ghana and Kenya because the
more independent the judiciary and other democratic institutions, the higher
the rate of democratic sustenance is guaranteed. This research is significant
because the courts have been used as dispute resolution arena. It aims at
investigating the role that courts have played to consolidate democracy. In
2012 Ghana’s opposition party leader went to the state’s Supreme Court to seek
redress about electoral irregularities and malpractices. While the 2017 Kenyan
elections dispute and irregularities were settled in the court. The study uses
quantitative and qualitative data as its primary data source. Data from the
Afro barometer survey is used. And published court rulings are used.
Qualitative data via interviews of judges and political Parties officials.

Keywords

Democracy, Elections, Democratization, Democratic Institutions, Consolidation

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