Ghana: IALS Library Guides

Guide last updated by Hester Swift, May 2022

The Republic of Ghana is in West Africa. Formerly known as the Gold Coast, it was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence from colonial rule, in 1957. Ghana became a republic a few years after independence, on 1 July 1960. Since that date there have been four republics interspersed by periods of military rule. The current, democratic state, the Fourth Republic, was declared on 7 January 1993.  

The Ghanaian legal system is based on a mixture of common law - inherited from Britain - and customary law. IALS Library holds both primary and secondary legal material for Ghana: legislation, law reports, books and journals.

The Constitution of the Fourth Republic was approved on 28 April 1992 and amended in 1996. The original text is on the website of the Republic of Ghana Judiciary and a version incorporating amendments is available on Constitute. A constitutional reform process was launched in early 2025, with the appointment of a Constitutional Review Committee.

Each of the previous republics had its own constitution, adopted in 1979, 1969 and 1960 respectively. The 1957 independence constitution was published in the Ghana (Constitution) Order in Council 1957, a UK statutory instrument (SI 1957/227).

HeinOnline's World Constitutions Illustrated (available to authorised users via the IALS Law Databases page) has the current and previous constitutions of Ghana. It also includes selected journal articles, a bibliography and other material relating to the Ghanaian constitutional law. 

The various constitutions of Ghana are also held at IALS Library in hard copy:   

Laws of Ghana, vol. 1: Constitution to constitutional instruments, Vincent C.R.A.C. Crabbe (ed.) (LexisNexis, c.2005-), has the text of the 1992 constitution as it stood on 31 December 2004; 

Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (Tema Press 1992);  

Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (Ghana Pub. Corp. 1979); 

Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (Ghana Pub. Corp. 1969); 

Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (Govt. Print. Dept. 1961);

Ghana (Consitution) Order in Council, 1957 (HMSO 1957).

Preparatory constitutional materials are also held at IALS, such as Proposals for a draft constitution of Ghana by the Committee of Experts (Constitution) (Government Printer, 1991). See Library Search, the online catalogue, for similar works, as well as books on Ghanaian constitutional law.

Terminology and numbering
Primary legislation passed from 1957 to 1960 and under the four Republics takes the form of 'acts', whereas the military regimes called their legislation 'decrees' or 'laws'. During the colonial period, the term 'ordinance' was used.

Acts are numbered in a single sequence, resuming after each period of military rule. This means, for example, that Act 720, the Whistleblower Act, 2006, is not the 720th act of 2006, nor of the Fourth Republic, but the 720th act passed since the beginning of the First Republic. However, the acts passed by the Constituent Assembly which drew up the Constitution of the First Republic have a separate numerical sequence.

The decrees and laws of the military regimes have their own numerical sequences and the numbers are prefixed by the abbreviated title of the regime, for example:

N.L.C.D. 3        National Liberation Council Decree no. 3             

N.R.C.D. 3        National Redemption Council Decree no. 3             

S.M.C.D. 3        Supreme Military Council Decree no. 3             

A.F.R.C.D. 3     Armed Forces Revolutionary Council Decree no. 3             

P.N.D.C.L. 3     Provisional National Defence Council Law no. 3

Colonial ordinances are numbered within each year, as are the acts of 1957-60, so the first ordinance or act of each year is no. 1, and so on.  

Primary legislation
IALS Library has Laws of Ghana, a compilation of primary legislation revised to 31 December 2004. Volume 2 includes a chronological table of legislation from 1852 to 2004. The work was prepared by Vincent C.R.A.C. Crabbe and published by LexisNexis South Africa on behalf of the Republic of Ghana. 

About ten historical sets of revised legislation are also held, dating from 1887 up to 1970; some of them include subsidiary as well as primary legislation. The titles vary, but all have the classmark RES GH3.E.1. 

The library has monograph editions of the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code:

The annotated Criminal Code of Ghana, edited by Henrietta J.A.N. Mensa-Bonsu (4th edn, Black Mask 2005);  a 1993 edition is also held;

The annotated Criminal Procedure Code of Ghana, edited by Henrietta J.A.N. Mensa-Bonsu (Black Mask 1999).

These codes are also included in Laws of Ghana (see above).

Primary legislation as originally passed (acts, ordinances, decrees and laws) is held from 1843 to 1995, with some gaps, at classmark GH3.E.2 / RES GH3.E.2 / RES FOL GH3.E.2. The earliest titles include colonial acts, treaties and other instruments, as well as ordinances.

Subsidiary legislation
IALS has subsidiary legislation as originally made from 1910 to 1995 (incomplete). Titles vary, but everything has the classmark GH3.E.4 / RES GH3.E.4 / RES FOL GH3.E.4. This collection includes various types of instrument, including rules, regulations, orders, proclamations, constitutional instruments and executive instruments. 

The library holds a 1954 revised set of subsidiary legislation, The laws of the Gold Coast: containing subsidiary legislation...

Some subsidiary legislation from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is included in the revised sets of primary legislation at classmark RES GH3.E.1.

Two sets of Gold Coast emergency regulations are also held, dating from World War II and 1950, classmark RES FOL GH3.E.3. 

Online sources of legislation
The Ghana Legal Information Institute (GhaLII) has primary and secondary legislation from 1960 onwards, with details of amendments and repeals.

The Parliament of Ghana website has a small collection of acts from the 1960s onwards, including many revised versions.

Certain international organisations have global databases that include legislation from Ghana, for example WIPOLex and the ILO's NATLex.

Information about the court system is available on the website of the Republic of Ghana Judiciary.

Law reports and case digests for Ghana are at classmarks GH3.G and GH3.H. They include:-

The Ghana Law Reports (Council for Law Reporting),1959-1968 and 1971 onwards;

  The Supreme Court of Ghana Law Reports (Advanced Legal Publications), 1996/97 onwards;

West African Law Reports (1956 – 1958; continued by Ghana Law Reports - see above);

Law Reports: a selection from the cases decided in the Full Courts of the Gold Coast colony, of the colony of Lagos, and the colony of Southern Nigeria, 1881-1911; 

Fanti Law Report of Decided Cases on Fanti Customary Laws (1897). 

Online sources
The Ghana Legal Information Institute has cases from the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court.

Law Reports of the Commonwealth, on Lexis+® UK, has published about thirty Ghanaian cases, mostly Supreme Court decisions (1980s onwards). 

SCC Online includes about 250 Supreme Court of Ghana judgments (2013 onwards) - see 'Browse Judgments by Court'. 

CommonLII has selected Ghana land law decisions (1872 -1990).

IALS Library holds a small selection of reports and other publications by official bodies, including reports of the Ghana Law Reform Commission: see Library Search for details.

GhaLII has the Ghana Gazette for parts of the 1970s and the 1990s onwards; there is an ongoing project by Laws.Africa and AfricanLII to digitise more gazettes.

The British Library has a large collection of official publications from Ghana, including the Ghana Gazette and its forerunners, the Gold Coast Gazette  (1922 – 1957) and Government Gazette (1885 – 1922).  

The Parliament of Ghana website provides parliamentary debates ('Official Reports', or 'Hansard') from 2005 onwards, order papers from 2016 onwards and minutes of votes and proceedings from 2016 onwards.

Other official publications may be available on government websites.

IALS Library has a substantial collection of books on the law of Ghana. We also have many works about African, Commonwealth and comparative law, some of which cover Ghana. Everything is listed on Library Search.

Our recent titles on the law of Ghana include the following:

Francisca Serwaa Boateng, The handbook on civil jurisdiction of court of appeal & supreme court: rules, cases, commentary & precedents
(Elisus-Beatty Trust Services Limited 2024)

Kwame Gyan, Cases and materials on customary land law of Ghana (LegalPoint Professional Publishers Limited 2023)

Raymond Atuguba, The new constitutional and administrative law of Ghana: from the garden of Eden to 2022 (University of Ghana Printing Press 2022)

Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, Selected papers and lectures on Ghanaian law (DigiBooks 2021)

Dennis Dominic Adjei, Contemporary criminal law in Ghana (3rd edn, 2021)

Tweneboah, Seth, Religion, law, politics and the state in Africa: applying legal pluralism in Ghana (Routledge 2020)

Asante, Samuel K. B., Reflections on governance, law and development (LAP Lambert  Academic Publishing 2019)

Manteaw, Samuel Obeng, Migration law in Ghana (Kluwer Law International 2018)

Sarpong, George Agyemang, Ghanaian environmental law: international and national perspectives (Wildy, Simmonds & Hill 2018)

IALS has the following Ghanaian law journals:

Review of Ghana Law (Council for Law Reporting, 1969 - ); hard copy vol.1 (1969) to vol. 20 (1996-2000);  on HeinOnline 1969 to 2010 (see Library Search); covered by Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals; 

University of Ghana Law Journal (University of Ghana, Faculty of Law, 1964 - ); hard copy vol.1 (1964) to vol. 19 (1995) and vol. 25 (2011-2012); online 1964-2016 (see Library Search);

KNUST Law Journal is available as an e-journal only, 2004-2019  (see Library Search).

The collection also includes single issues of a few other series from Ghana: see Library Search under classmark GH3.J.

IALS Library has many journals focusing on African or Commonwealth law, notably African Journal of International and Comparative Law, Journal of African Law, Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, Commonwealth Judicial Journal, Commonwealth Law Bulletin and African Human Rights Law Journal. 

There are also several newer journals, which IALS does not have: 

Banking and Financial Law Journal of Ghana. Accra: Legal Research Center, 1998-

Ghana School of Law Students’ Law Journal. Accra: Students’ Representative Council of the Ghana School of Law, 2012-

GIMPA Law Review.  Accra: Faculty of Law, GIMPA Law School, 2015-

Lancaster University Ghana Law Journal. East Legon, Accra, Ghana: Lancaster University Ghana Law Department, 2016- 

CommonLII (Commonwealth Legal Information Institute): selected Ghanaian acts, 1960 to 2010.

Ghana Government:  the government web portal

Ghana Legal Information Institute: provides issues of the Ghana Gazette and cases from the Ghanaian Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.

Judicial Service of Ghana: the Ghana courts website; has information about the court system and the judiciary.

Parliament of Ghana: provides parliamentary debates, order papers, committee reports, the Constitution, acts and bills.

Researching Ghanaian Law by Victor Essien one of a large collection of research guides on New York University's Globalex website.

WorldLII - Ghana:  the World Legal Information Institute's Ghana section, providing case law and links to other legal material from Ghana.