Accra — The Russian Ambassador to Ghana has publicly declared that Russia will not extradite one of its citizens to face prosecution under Ghanaian law, citing a constitutional prohibition that, Moscow argues, supersedes any bilateral extradition arrangement — a position that Ghanaian legal scholars say exposes a structural asymmetry at the heart of international legal cooperation between African states and major powers.
The ambassador's statement, which circulated widely on Ghanaian social media this week and generated significant public debate, asserts that the Russian constitution bars the extradition of Russian nationals to foreign jurisdictions under any circumstances. The declaration is not unusual in the context of Russian constitutional law — Article 61 of the Russian constitution contains an absolute prohibition on the extradition of its citizens — but its application in Accra has reignited a debate that goes far beyond this single case.
Note: The specific details of the case under discussion — the identity of the Russian national, the nature of the alleged offence, and the stage of Ghanaian legal proceedings — could not be independently verified through official Ghanaian government channels at the time of publication. The ambassador's stated constitutional position, however, is a matter of settled Russian law and is treated here on that basis.
The constitutional shield
Russia's position rests on one of the most unambiguous provisions in its constitutional order. Article 61 prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens to foreign states absolutely — the clause admits no exceptions, no judicial override, and no treaty-based derogation. It is a principle Russia has applied consistently: to requests from European jurisdictions, from American investigators, and now, apparently, from Ghanaian prosecutors.
For Ghana, the refusal is not merely a procedural setback. It raises a question that African states have confronted in various forms for decades: what recourse exists when a major power declines to cooperate with its legal process?
"What we are seeing is not exceptional. It is the rule," said a Ghanaian international law scholar reached for comment. "African states prosecute. They build cases. And then they discover that their jurisdiction effectively ends at the airport. The question is what African governments intend to do about it systematically, rather than case by case."
Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not issued a formal public response to the ambassador's statement at the time of publication.
A wider pattern
The incident takes place at a moment of heightened scrutiny of Russia's engagement across West Africa. Russian private military contractors — operating under successive brands including the Wagner Group and its successor Africa Corps — have expanded their presence across the Sahel, with formal arrangements now in place in Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic. Ghana, a stable multiparty democracy that has not entered such arrangements, occupies a different position — but Russian commercial, diplomatic, and security interests on the continent are broad, and Accra is a significant hub.
The ambassador's invocation of constitutional supremacy over treaty obligations is a reminder that bilateral legal agreements, however carefully negotiated, operate within a power hierarchy. When a permanent member of the UN Security Council declines to cooperate with a West African state's legal request, no enforcement mechanism currently exists to compel a different outcome.
"African states negotiated extradition treaties under assumptions of reciprocity that do not hold in practice," noted a legal analyst who specialises in international criminal cooperation in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. "The asymmetry is baked in. Until African states collectively develop alternative enforcement tools, this pattern will repeat."
What Ghana can do
International law does provide alternative mechanisms, though none are as direct as extradition. Ghana could seek to freeze assets linked to the individual within its jurisdiction. It could pursue the case through the International Criminal Court if the offence meets the relevant threshold. It could use Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) mechanisms to obtain witness testimony or documentary evidence without requiring physical transfer of the accused. ECOWAS-level coordination could, in principle, amplify diplomatic pressure.
African Union member states have also discussed — without yet implementing — stronger frameworks for collective legal solidarity that would enable African states to present a unified front when major powers decline to cooperate with individual members' requests. Ghana's case may become a reference point in those conversations.
What the incident illustrates most clearly is the gap between the formal equality of states under international law and the practical inequality of their enforcement power. Ghana is entitled, under every applicable legal framework, to seek the extradition of a person it wishes to prosecute. Russia has simply declined — not illegally, but consequentially.
For Ghanaian legal scholars, that distinction matters. The problem is not Russian lawlessness. The problem is a legal architecture that allows a great power's domestic constitutional provision to function, in effect, as a wall around its citizens wherever they operate in the world.
54 countries, 2,000 languages, 1.4 billion people — and every one of their justice systems faces the same ceiling when a great power decides its constitution takes precedence.
