Vincent Cyril Richard Arthur Charles Crabbe

In 1955 Crabbe joined the Attorney-General's Department of Ghana starting out as an Assistant Crown Counsel. On 1 June 1958, he was appointed as a First Parliamentary Counsel, becoming the first African to be appointed one, the title was abolished in Ghana soon after for State Attorney. Together with the New Zealand lawyer Fred Boyce, he drafted the legislations, Ordinances and Acts of Parliament which were passed by the National Assembly on Ghana's Independence Day.[9][10]

In 1963, then president Nkrumah sent him on a mission to Uganda where he was made a First Parliamentary Counsel and Constitutional Advisor to the Uganda Government and drafted the 1966 Ugandan Constitution.[11]

In August 1968 he was appointed Interim Electoral Commissioner of Ghana to conduct the 1969 Elections. Crabbe set up the first ever electoral commission Ghana had ever had. He served as Special Commissioner to the 1969 Constitutional Commission and a Legislative Draftsman to the 1969 Constituent Assembly which drafted the 1969 Constitution of Ghana.[12]

He was Chairman of the 1979 Constituent Assembly and drafted the 1979 Constitution of Ghana. He worked with the Constitutional Review Commission of Kenya and was Leader of the group of Draftspersons who drafted the Kenya Constitution. He did work the Zambian Constititional Commission for the drafting of the Zambian Constitution as well with the Fiajoe Review Commission for the review of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Crabbe worked with Justice P.N. Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India and Justice Kayode Eso of the Supreme Court of Nigeria to advise on the setting up of the Constitutional Court in South Africa.

In 1999 Crabbe was appointed as Statute Law Review Commissioner. He was for many years sole Statute Law Review Commissioner of Ghana at the Ghanaian Ministry of Justice and in this office revised the Laws of Ghana from 1852 to 2004 in seven volumes before retiring from public office.[13]

He was a Co-Chair of the Coalition of Democratic Election Observers Ghana (CODEO) an agency under the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana).[14]

Crabbe was appointed a high court judge on 16 December 1966, soon after his return from Uganda. In 1968, when he was appointed as Interim Electoral Commissioner of Ghana, it was with the status of a Justice of the Court Appeal. In 1970, he was nominated and made a Supreme Court Judge of Ghana by prime minister Kofi Abrefa Busia. Following the military coup which toppled the Busia government in 1972, the supreme court was suspended. When the judicial system was restored Crabbe was not sent to the supreme court but returned to the high court. He served as a high court judge from 1972 to 1975. In 1976, he was sent to the court of appeal as a judge and in 1979 returned to the supreme court.

From 1958 to 1963, Crabbe was a tutor and lecturer during the foundation years of the Ghana School of Law until he left for Uganda. He worked as a Senior Instructor at the International Law Development Centre in Rome, Italy. From 1974 to 1998, he was Director of the Commonwealth Secretariat Scheme for Legislative draftsmen for the West African Region, Southern Africa Region and the Caribbean Region. He was a professor of Legislative drafting at the Cave Hill Campus, Barbados of the University of West Indies.[15] Crabbe was a Professor of Law at Mountcrest University College in Accra until his death on 7 September 2018.[16]