The Majority caucus in Parliament says the decision by the Speaker, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, to adjourn the House sine die without exhausting businesses before it was “arbitrary and capricious”.
The Speaker on Wednesday adjourned the House sine die putting on ice the approval of President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo’s new set of ministerial nominees and other businesses.
Citing an interlocutory injunction application filed by Member for South Dayi, Nelson Dafeamekpor, which seeks to restraint the Speaker and Parliament from approving the nominees, the Speaker said his decision was in respect of an earlier precedent set by the Office of the President.
The Secretary to the President, Nana Asante Bediatuo, had written to the Clerk of Parliament to “cease and desist” from transmitting the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill to the President for his assent because there were two injunction suits against the Bill.
The above position, the Speaker held was “contemptuous of Parliament” and called on Members to “stand united in response to this affront to the legislative authority vested in it by the Constitution and the people we serve.”
But in a statement rebuking the Speaker for unilaterally taking that adjourning the House sine die without recourse to the leadership, the Majority Caucus said the Speaker had been “undemocratic” in his approach.
“The decision of Mr Speaker to adjourn the House without recourse to Members, especially leadership, is most arbitrary, capricious and undemocratic,” the statement issued on Wednesday March 20, 2024 reads in part.
According to the Majority, the Speaker erred in his interpretation of the Dafeamekpor suit.
“It beggars belief that our distinguished Speaker could not, or did not want to appreciate what has been filed at the Supreme Court and which is much unconnected with the President’s ministerial nominees who are vetted and waiting for the House to approve their nominations.
“The gargantuan contradiction of Mr Speaker is that while he accuses Mr President of respecting mere injunction application, he will respect a mere injunction application whether or not it bothers on Parliament’s work,” the statement explained.
The effect of the Speaker’s unilateral decision, the statement argued, torpedoed government’s work and deprives the President and the Ghanaian people, the able men and women needed to assist the President in running the government machinery.
“It is our humble belief that it is the Speaker who is undermining our democracy and not Mr President,” the statement also said.
Providing clarity to Mr Bediatuo’s letter to the Clerk, the Caucus said the spirit of the letter was conclusive that the President was constitutionally-minded and would not undermine the Supreme Court in its sacred role of administering justice.
“The President was in no way being dictatorial in his communication to Parliament, given the fact that the content of the letter was not binding on the Speaker.
“The Majority asserts in no uncertain terms that the President [by not receiving the Bill] was being law-abiding by reason of the injunctive processes pending before the Supreme Court,” the statement emphasised.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI