A former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Mr Joe Ghartey, has waded into the controversial GITMO detainees saga, questioning the authority under which President John Mahama had to bring the detainees into the country. He said under the 1992 Constitution, the President derived his powers from the Constitution and, therefore, did not have absolute powers to do as he pleased. Speaking on the topic, “The Presidency, Executive authority and checks and balances” as the first in a series of the Almond Institute’s New Year Lectures, Mr Ghartey, a former minister in the Kufuor administration, said, “The President does not have that power. He can talk to the Minister of Interior, who would talk to the Director of Immigration, but he cannot usurp that power because that power is given to somebody else.”