Vacant Seats in Parliament: Martin Amidu accuses Speaker Bagbin of usurping Supreme Court’s jurisdiction
Former Attorney-General, Martin Amidu has accused Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin of usurping the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction in his interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution when he declared four parliamentary seats vacant.
Bagbin had on October 17, 2024 granted a motion by the Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson to declare some four seats vacant, making the NDC become the party with majority members in Parliament.
“. …. It is therefore incumbent upon me, as Speaker of this House, to address these issues thoroughly. In doing this, I am simply applying the provisions of the Constitution, 1992, Parliament Act, 1965, Act 300, the Standing Orders of Parliament, 2024 precedents, and established legal principles. The issue of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution lies in the bosom of the Supreme Court and not that of the Speaker,” the Speaker said.
Delivering his ruling, the Speaker noted that the decision by the affected MPs to contest in the December 7, 2024, election as independent or on the ticket of a party different from the party on whose ticket they currently serve, contravened Article 97 (g) and (h) of the 1992 Constitution.
He noted that the motive and operational effect of Article 97(g) and (h) was to cure the issues of cross carpeting and defection as witnessed in parliaments of old.
He stated that the intent of Article 97 (g) (i) was to cure party loyalty throughout the stay of an MP in Parliament.
The Speaker emphasised that the affected MPs by their decision and the Notice of Polls issued by the Electoral Commission for the December 7, 2024, parliamentary elections have vacated their seat.
The affected seats and their MPs included Cynthia Morrison (Agona West), Kwadwo Asante (Suhum), Andrew Amoako Asiamah (Fomena), and Peter Kwakye Ackah (Amenfi Central).
But the Supreme Court on Friday, October 18, 2024, stayed the Speaker’s ruling suspending the vacation of the four seats pending further legal review and final determination.
Commenting on the Speaker’s ruling, the former Attorney-General said the Speaker himself recognized that: “The issue of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution lies in the bosom of the Supreme Court and not that of the Speaker.”
“Nonetheless the Speaker with his eyes open in making his declaration indulged in issues of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution in his analysis of Articles 97(1) (g) and(h) of the 1992 Constitution in several respects. For example, the Speaker stated in paragraph 12 of his declaration that:
“12.
He added: “The provisions of Article 97(1)(g) and (h) are designed to safeguard the principles of party loyalty, voter representation, and political stability. Deflection is prohibited because it undermines the trust placed in MPs by their constituents and can lead to instability in Parliament. These constitutional safeguards ensure that Members of Parliament remain accountable to both their parties and the electorate, and they prevent MPs from engaging in behavior that could amount to fraud or disruptive of the functioning of Parliament.”
Read the full text below:
THE POLITICS OF DESPERATION FOR POLITICAL POWER IN GHANA – THE
CASE OF SITTING MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AS INDEPENDENTS AT THE 2024 ELECTIONS: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
As the electorate inches towards 7 December 2024 to exercise its inalienable right to decide at the polls who should represent each of the 275 constituencies in Parliament and who should have the mandate to be President of Ghana, the two main political parties who have taken turns to ground the affairs of Ghana into selfish and greedy economic pulp have become so desperate for political power that either one of them wins the elections or the 1992 Constitution and the 4th Republic must burn into ashes, come what may.
The latest intractable conflict giving rise to a figurative burning down of Parliament tomorrow, Tuesday, 22 October 2024 over a purposeful and needless self-created disagreement for political aggrandizement and power junketeering on whether members of parliament who intend to contest the 2024 elections taking place on 7 December 2024 as independent candidates can do so was declared from Tamale in the Northern Region on 13 October 2024 during an NDC ceremony.
It was consummated in Parliament on Tuesday, 15 October 2024 under the leadership of the Minority Leader and not the announcer of the action from Tamale, opposed by the majority leadership, and culminated as usual in the hands of the Speaker of Parliament for a transactional decision on Thursday, 17 October 2024.
Any objective citizen familiar with the modus operandi of the Speaker of Parliament in his usual vacillatory transactional decision-making since the rejection of the Government’s 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy, the eventual approval of the same budget, the passage of the estimates and the E-levy by Parliament presided over by the same Speaker would have predicted how the transactional chips were going to fall.
The Speaker, as was to be expected, declared the seats of four members of parliament vacant in accordance with the Speaker’s agreement with the invitation to him by the Minority Leader “…. to declare the seats of these four Members vacant in accordance with Article 97(1)(g) and 97(1)(h) of the Constitution 1992.” The consequence as the Speaker well knew by the invitation of the Minority Leader was that: “…. if these seats are declared vacant, the resultant effect on the composition of this House would be that the NDC would have 136 seats, while the NPP would have 135 seats, thus making the NDC the Majority Party in Parliament.”
In the interim, as a countering conflict interaction move, the Majority Leader had filed an action in the Supreme Court to restrain the actions of the Speaker and the Minority in Parliament. But the expected decision of the Speaker put the Minority side which had by then declared itself as the Majority in Parliament into overdrive immediately like the donkey which announced its intentions to the gods or God before a decision could be made whether to give it horns or not.
On Friday, 18 October 2024 various authoritative statements made by leading members of the NDC gave notice that the E-levy which the very NDC Speaker presided over and passed, and other taxes in which both sides participated in passing were to be repealed by private members bills. A clear example of the zombification of the electorate.
By the evening of Friday, 18 October 2024 the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of constitutional disputes under the 1992 Constitution had issued ex parte orders staying the declarations by the Speaker of Parliament on suspending the four members of parliament from participation in the business of Parliament until the final determination of the case filed by the Majority Leader.
The weekend has been awash with criticism and condemnations of the orders of the Supreme Court by beneficiaries of the conflict interaction begun by the NDC on 13 October 2024 with a press conference on Sunday, 20 October 2024 literally challenging the authority of the Supreme Court to have made the decision and orders on 18 October 2024, and touting the Speaker’s credentials of 32 years in Parliament, his courage and resoluteness, urging him to protect the dignity and sanctity of Parliament, and vowing to resist oppressor’s rule.
In an unconstitutional, undemocratic and an insult to the rule of law the Minority Leader declared in a press statement on Sunday, 20 October 2024 that: “27. The NDC MPs now constitute the Majority Caucus, in line with the Standing Orders of Parliament… 29. We will jealously protect our new Majority status and will not bow, retreat nor surrender our lawfully earned status…” In one fell swoop the Minority in Parliament nullified the decision of the Supreme Court.
The Minority Leader’s press conference is in contempt of the decision and orders of the Supreme Court. Whether the Speaker will obey or disobey the decision and orders of the Court on Tuesday, 22 October 2024 will soon unfold tomorrow when Parliament convenes.
I do not intend to comment on the propriety or otherwise of the decision and orders of the Supreme Court in a matter which is sub judice. The Speaker of Parliament in making his declaration of the four seats of the members of parliament vacant stated his burden, inter alia, in paragraph 6 as follows:
“6. …. It is therefore incumbent upon me, as Speaker of this House, to address these issues thoroughly. In doing this, I am simply applying the provisions of the Constitution, 1992, Parliament Act, 1965, Act 300, the Standing Orders of Parliament, 2024 precedents, and established legal principles. The issue of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution lies in the bosom of the Supreme Court and not that of the Speaker.”
The Speaker himself recognized that: “The issue of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution lies in the bosom of the Supreme Court and not that of the Speaker.”
Nonetheless the Speaker with his eyes open in making his declaration indulged in issues of interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution in his analysis of Articles 97(1) (g) and(h) of the 1992 Constitution in several respects. For example, the Speaker stated in paragraph 12 of his declaration that:
“12.
The provisions of Article 97(1)(g) and (h) are designed to safeguard the principles of party loyalty, voter representation, and political stability. Deflection is prohibited because it undermines the trust placed in MPs by their constituents and can lead to instability in Parliament. These constitutional safeguards ensure that Members of Parliament remain accountable to both their parties and the electorate, and they prevent MPs from engaging in behavior that could amount to fraud or disruptive of the functioning of Parliament.”
The foregoing was a clear usurpation of the interpretative and enforcement jurisdiction of the Supreme Court apportioned to the judiciary under the Articles 2 and 130 of the 1992 Constitution. One cannot approbate and reprobate, the saying goes. How does any reasonable person condemn the Supreme Court when the Speaker has blatantly offered it the opportunity to assert its constitutional authority to determine whether or not what the Speaker did on 17 October 2024 constituted an unlawful usurpation of judicial power under Article 125 (3)?
Both the NPP and the NDC are using every opportunity to whip up the gullible public’s support to hoodwink the electorate to vote for it at the 2024 elections regardless of the integrity and truthfulness of the information presented to the electorate. Over the years, particularly from 2001 to date, both political parties have sought to bring the Supreme Court to the bar of politics.
It is, therefore, needless to complain when one’s ass is gored that the Supreme Court is indulging in political decision-making when those who invited the Court to do so are the very two adversarial political parties.
What is the difference between recruiting the Speaker of Parliament who owes his allegiance to the NDC to make a favourable decision to give the NDC a majority status in Parliament and a Supreme Court which has been properly vetted and approved in a bi-partisan manner under the Constitution assuming its authority to determine the usurpation of its judicial power by the Speaker of Parliament? Sore losers on both side jostling for power for its own sake without any intention to uphold and defend the 1992 Constitution as by law established.
I did not intend to get involved in the on-going do and die escalatory zero sum conflict between the NPP and the NDC which does not consider the events leading to the 4 June 1979 uprising and the 31 December 1981 Revolution in the 2024 election circle.
I am writing this piece because I received a telephone call on 20 October 2024 from the principal of a nephew of mine who started engaging me since Sunday 13 October 2024 as an emissary of his principal on the announcement made in Tamale, in the Northern Region on Sunday, 13 October 2024 evincing an intention to raise the issue of members of parliament who intend to contest the 2024 elections as independent candidates.
I explained to my nephew that I did not think the proposition will fly when it goes to the Supreme Court. My nephew continued to update me on developments in this matter until 19 October 2024 when he told me his principal had asked for my telephone number to reach out to me. Then came the call of 20 October 2024 throwing my nephew under the buss in a Machiavellian manner by denying part of the brief to my nephew contact me. It was a barefaced untruth. I refuse to allow any attempt to belittle my intellect after more than three scores and ten years of my earthly existence by little minds with no respect for elders.
The 2024 elections in Ghana must be fought and won on the integrity, honesty and policy programmes of the various candidates and their political parties. The unnecessary hyping of national tensions and promotion of violence which has the propensity to implode the 1992 Constitution just for the sake of raw power for its own sake without the interests of the citizens at heart must stop.
Beware of 4 June 1979! Beware of 31 December 1981! None of the two major political parties will win when they undermine and facilitate the implosion of the 1992 Constitution. The protection of the Constitution mandates that all citizens skew the greed for raw power for its own sake and put Ghana First.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu – 21 October 2024
