Professor Stephen Kweku Asare has shared his thoughts on the ruling of the Supreme Court over the voting rights of the Deputy Speakers in Parliament to be problematic and impractical.
The Professor finds the ruling to be flawed on the grounds of logic and even more so surprised by how the courts arrived by the decision it made in its judgement.
He said: “Even if you wanted to take a literal interpretation of the constitution you would not have gotten the result that they got. Because the most literal reading of the constitution is that the Speaker does not have a casting or original vote. And then you go to article 295(2,a), this article basically says when we refer to somebody by his office then everything that applies to that somebody would apply to somebody who is acting as a deputy or assistant in the same function or performing the same function”.
These statements were made during a radio interview on Citi FM’s Big Issue on Saturday via a zoom call.
The CDD Fellow believes that the Supreme Courts could have done better than it did if it had followed proper historical reviews available. By this he is concerned about the practicality of the ruling made by the Supreme Courts.
“Now let us look at the practicality of the ruling. Firstly, you say that the deputy speaker must be counted in the quorum and can vote. What exactly is the voting about that he (we) are talking about. It says he must take part in a decision. Well that is so broad that it does not help me. Parliament makes so many decisions, everything that Parliament does is a decision. Is the Supreme Court saying from now on every decision that Parliament have to make would have to meet a quorum for voting? That is impractical. That almost is a court that doesn’t understand how Parliament works”.
He added “Even if we grant that there is a decision that has to be made and the deputy speaker should take part in it, how does he take part in it? Most decisions in the Parliament are made by voice vote. Is the Supreme Court saying that the person who is presiding, who is supposed to be paying attention to the ‘Yeas’ and ‘Nays’ and deciding whether the ‘Yeas’ and ‘Nays’ have it should wear the MP’s hat and also be shouting ‘Yea’ while is still listening for who is the loudest?”
He added that Parliamentary business should not be interfered with, especially from the courts as Justice Sowah said some time back. He believes that the impartiality of the anyone presiding the business of Parliament should be taken seriously in its right context.
As to the argument that should a deputy speaker not be allowed to vote in decision making, it disenfranchises his/her constituents, the Professor feels that argument does not have a legal or constitutional basis. For him the deputy speaker seldom precides over Parliament. Yet the constituents enjoy certain privileges that comes with the office of being a deputy.
“The Deputy Speaker wills other powers even when he is not preceding. By reason of being a deputy speaker, he chairs so many committees so people from a constituency that have a deputy speaker actually ends up benefiting than those from constituencies that do not have a deputy speaker”.
By this the Professor also raised instances where members of Parliament are not allowed to partake in decisions in the house.
“Now when you look at the constitution itself, the constitution disqualifies an MP if the member of Parliament has a contract that is being considered by Parliament or has an interest in the contract that is being considered by Parliament, the constitution says well you can not vote. Well, why? Isn’t he representing a constituency? If he is representing a constituency why should that whole constituency be disenfranchised?”, Prof. Kweku Asare added.
He also added the case of the Ministers who are from Parliament who most at times are not present in Parliament for the jobs they have to handle at the Ministry level. For those who are concerned about representation of their MPs should also make a case for the limited participation of MPs who are at the same time Ministers.
The Professor believes the court choose to get involved in a mood issue rather than following constitutional mandate. For that matter, the ruling will cause more problems than bring resolution.
“So I am afraid that to me, and any one reading the constitution carefully, you can not agree with this decision and it is going to cause confusion, fundamentally, the courts itself should not have been involved”, he said.
