‘Neither fish nor fowl’: an analysis of status ambiguity of the Houses of Chiefs in Ghana
This article sets out to explain the basis of status ambiguity of the Houses of Chiefs and Traditional Councils in Ghana and the implications of this ambiguity on the status of the administrative personnel working in them. The interest was necessitated by complaints from administrative personnel in the Houses of Chiefs who were excluded from the general salary enhancement to all civil servants in Ghana in 2007. Between 2007 and 2009, research was conducted in all the 10 Regional Houses of Chiefs, in the National House of Chiefs and at the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture (MCC). While interviews were the main methods used at the MCC, it was combined with observations at the Houses of Chiefs. Primary and secondary documents were also consulted in the process. Data revealed that the Houses of Chiefs serve as “customary” courts for chieftaincy disputes and over the years, have incorporated certain practices of the English common law into their proceedings. Thus, they are neither customary courts in the strictest sense, nor common law courts, which equally explains the difficulty in determining whether or not the administrative personnel in these Houses are civil servants.
CHIEFS AS JUDGES IN MODERN GHANA: EXPLORING THE JUDICIAL ROLE AND CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE ASHANTI REGIONAL HOUSE OF CHIEFS
Long before the advent of modern systems of governance and its adjudication arrangement of justice, the Ashantis of Ghana, like other African societies, had their own system of governance and conflict resolution mechanisms which revolved around the chieftaincy institution. However, with the advent of western-styled democracy and its modern court system, the chieftaincy institution of Ghana as in Ashanti, has been incorporated into the legal system of the country. With this development, the chief in modern day Ghana is perceived by many as basically a ceremonial figure who performs religious and cultural functions, with many even questioning the relevance of the whole traditional adjudication system. Against this background, the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs was used in an explorative case study design to explore the role and the challenges confronting the chiefs in the resolution of conflicts. Using 33 traditional authorities selected purposely, data gathered through in-depth interview revealed that, chiefs as adjudicating members of the Judicial Committee still play an instrumental role in the resolution of chieftaincy conflicts bordering on nomination, selection, enstoolment, destoolment and misappropriation of stool property in the Ashanti Region. The study further revealed that the activities of the Regional House were fraught with challenges including: lack of training for chiefs on conflict resolution, absenteeism on the part of panel members and lawyers to litigants, and inadequate funding. These challenges as the study identified contributed to the delay in adjudication and piling up of chieftaincy cases. Keywords : Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs, Chief and Chieftaincy, Chieftaincy Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Judicial Committee.
The Provincial Centre at Camulodunum: Towards an Historical Context
Present assessment of the provincial enclosure at Camulodunum, more particularly how far it can be compared to the standard picture of similar centres elsewhere, is inevitably constrained by the limited evidence at our disposal. With no numismatic sources to draw on and in the absence of a single record of the provincial priesthood — a striking void that calls for comment — documentary testimony is restricted to what can be made of two passages in the literary authorities. The first, a notorious sneer in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis (VIII.3), tells only that a temple of some sort was associated somehow with the emperor Claudius. The second text, an obscure allusion in Tacitus, is at first sight no more enlightening but, on closer analysis, the phrase templum Divo Claudio constitutum (Ann. xiv.31) yields the invaluable inference that the temple was to the deified, not the living Claudius; in which case construction must have been begun in a.d. 54 or later. Archaeological data throw no light on the origins of the temple or of the precinct in which it stood but exploration has steadily enlarged our knowledge of the site itself, and understanding of the remains has now reached the stage at which, for all its puzzling lacunae, the centre is as well known in some ways as the triple-tiered complex at Tarraco, the provincial enclave of Hispania Citerior. We have arrived at the point where the British sanctuary and its counterparts on the Continent can be mutually illuminating.