Civil society group Democracy Hub has filed a writ at the Supreme Court to contest what it refers to as an "unconstitutional and illegal" Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government of Ghana and the United States of America for the reception and detention of West African nationals to be deported.
The group holds that the MoU — alleged to allow the U.S. to move third-country nationals into Ghana for temporary detention and subsequent rendition — violates the Constitution of Ghana as well as global human rights norms.
The Supreme Court has fixed Wednesday, October 22, 2025, to consider an application for an interlocutory injunction to halt the enforcement of the agreement until the final verdict on the suit.
Secret Deal and Detentions
According to Democracy Hub, the Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa disclosed in September that Ghana had struck a deal with the United States to accept and temporarily detain deported West African citizens from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.
The agreement was said to form part of broader negotiations to lift visa restrictions imposed by Washington on Ghana.
Since then, the group reports 42 individuals have been repatriated in three batches — on September 6, September 19, and October 13, 2025 — and detained under armed military custody at the Bundase Military Training Camp.
Democracy Hub reports that the deportees were in "deplorable conditions for weeks without charge, without lawyers, and in inhumane conditions."
Constitutional and Legal Grounds
The writ, filed under Articles 2(1)(b) and 130(1) of the 1992 Constitution, seeks 28 reliefs from the Supreme Court.
The group's legal argument is founded on four key points:
Lack of Parliamentary Approval: The MoU was never laid before Parliament to be ratified according to Article 75(2) of the Constitution.
Violation of International Law: The agreement contravenes Ghana's undertakings under the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture, and the OAU Refugee Convention, which prohibit the repatriation of people to countries where they will be persecuted or put at risk of torture — a rule referred to as non-refoulement.
Abuse of Human Rights: The arresting of civilians and asylum-seekers into the custody of military rule, the group argues, contravenes Articles 14, 15, and 19 of the Constitution, which guarantee personal liberty, human dignity, and the right to a fair hearing.
Complicity in Chain Refoulement: By participating in the process of sending individuals who will be at risk of persecution elsewhere, Ghana is said to be facilitating "chain refoulement," a grave breach of jus cogens norms — mandatory principles of international law from which no state may derogate.
On a press release accompanying the suit, Democracy Hub asserted that no government has the right to "secretly contract Ghana out of its constitutional and human rights obligations."
"International cooperation has to be transparent, subject to parliamentary oversight, and respectful of the human being's dignity in all international cooperation issues," said the coalition. "The issue is not about the people who have been affected but also about maintaining the democratic purity of Ghana and its image as a rule-of-law country that honors international human rights."
Winning the case would create a precedent for Ghana's methodology of negotiating and ratifying international treaties for foreign security and immigration deals