Report on Citizenship Law: Ghana One legal debate concerns the exact point at which dual citizens would have to renounce their second citizenship before being allowed to run for public office. This debate arose when it transpired that the 2020 elected Member of Parliament, James Gyakye Quayson of the oppositional National Democratic Congress (NDC), held dual Ghanaian-Canadian citizenship when he submitted his documents for candidacy to the Electoral Commission of Ghana to run for office in the 2020 general elections. Quayson held that he had already applied for a renunciation of his Canadian second citizenship in 2019. In October 2020, he submitted his documents for nomination to run for the office of MP. In November 2020, he received his confirmation of renunciation of Canadian citizenship and only in December 2020, he said in his defence, he started his election campaign. While Quayson argued that he did not violate the constitution because he only started running for office after he had received his renunciation documents, the Ghanaian High Court ruled in 2021 that Quayson’s election was ‘null and void and of no legal effect’ (Nimafah vs Quayson & 2 Ors, GHASC 31, 17 May 2023, 2). In 2023, the Ghanaian Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s ruling. It reasoned that the point at which candidates can no longer hold dual citizenship is the point at which candidates file their documents for nomination to the Ghanaian Electoral Commission (Nimfah vs Quayson & 2 Ors, GHASC 31, 17 May 2023). Although Quayson had applied to renounce his Canadian citizenship, he had not yet received official confirmation of the renunciation and thus still held dual citizenship when taking the decision to stand for office. With this decision, the Supreme Court also underlined a previous ruling from 2012, which held that imposing exclusions from offices on dual citizens is constitutional (Asare vs Attorney General, GHASC 31, 22 May 2012). The other legal debate concerns the exact offices from which dual citizens can lawfully be excluded. A ruling by the Supreme Court from 24 April 2024 declared the exclusion from certain public offices as unconstitutional; for two main procedural reasons. Firstly, the 1996 amendment to the Constitution states a list of public offices which dual citizens cannot hold, to which the 2000 Citizenship Act added six further offices. This addition, the court ruled, amounted to an amendment of the Constitution without an actual Constitution amendment act and was, therefore, null and void. Secondly, the addition of these offices did not follow parliamentary procedure as they were added towards the end of the parliamentary debate phase in a way that did not give MPs the appropriate time for consideration (Osei-Bonsu vs Attorney General, 24 Apr 2024). Both rulings, Nimafah vs Quayson and Osei-Bonsu Attorney General indicate that the question of whether dual citizens can hold important public offices has recently received increased public interest. 4.2 Dual Citizenship and Public Offices: The 2021 Citizenship (Amendment) Bill Recent political developments indicate a possibility of new citizenship legislation. While Nimfah vs Quayson was ongoing, a Member of Parliament of the ruling NPP, Kennedy Osei Nyarko, proposed a private member’s bill to amend the citizenship act so that MPs could hold dual citizenship (Asare 2022; GhanaWeb 2023, 2021; Modern Ghana 2021). His Citizenship (Amendment) Bill proposed: ‘to remove restrictions imposed on dual citizens from holding certain public offices specified in subsection (2) of section 16 of [the Citizenship Act]’ (Republic of Ghana, Parliamentary Debates Official Report, 28 Oct 2021, Col. 26). So far, the bill has been read once. The first reading did not reveal any arguments for or against the bill but simply stated that it had been presented by Osei Narko and referred to the Committee on Constitution, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. The bill is in line with the ruling NPP’s policy on dual citizenship. Back in 2020, the NPP released its Diaspora Engagement Policy, aimed at forging closer ties with Ghanaians in the Diaspora by offering them more citizenship rights (among other things). A key issue that the GLOBALCIT 15