Speaker of Parliament Alban S.K. Bagbin has cited the recent judgement of the Supreme Court as the reason why the House is recently embroiled in so much controversy.
According to him, conventions, practices and customs of the legislature are not all captured in black and white in a document but are known by the House and duly followed.
The Supreme Court’s attempt to interpret the House rules, he argued, are not contained in any physical document but contribute to guiding proceedings and business of Parliament has rather done more harm.
“That is a good reason why I asked for a review… At least give me the benefit of the doubt that for all these years I have been here, I know some things that others don’t know,” he said.
Speaker Alban Bagbin made the observation yesterday after confusion rocked the Chamber over the votes of proceedings of Tuesday, March 29.
The Minority strongly objected to the records of that day, which not only failed to capture the Minority walkout on the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) but also conspicuously reported eight Minority members absent.
The Speaker pointed out that even before his arrival from the medical review, the House encountered many issues that disrupted business because of the interpretation and understanding of quorum as stated in the judgement of the Supreme Court.
He averred that as people who were going to be affected by the ruling, Parliament should have been given notice in order to also issue its understanding of the law but did not get that opportunity.
“When I referred to us having notice… we had no notice of the case of Justice Abdulai versus the Attorney General. We had no notice of it and we didn’t know about it.
“So please I want to let this come out clearly in trying to explain these things so that you understand why the work of a Member of Parliament in Parliament is not restricted to the floor of the Chamber.”
According to him, much of the work of Parliament is done at the committee level, which is why the bell is rung for 10 minutes when it comes to the time of voting so members can come and vote.
The 10 minutes, he said, is used because of the practices in the House of Commons where the furthest end takes 10 minutes to walk to the Chamber and MPs can only be counted when on the floor.
“So if you are present in Parliament and you have agreed to vote, you have to join it and vote and go back to do whatever you are doing because in transacting Parliamentary business, you can be on the floor but visit the washroom, attend to your constituents or be at a Committee meeting; you are in Parliament. This must be known,” he said.
Mr. Bagbin explained that being in Parliament means being in the precinct of Parliament, which is why MPs cannot be served on the grounds of the House.
The Supreme Court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse in a unanimous 7-0 decision on 9th March, 2022 ruled that a Deputy Speaker can be counted during the formation of a quorum for Parliamentary decision-making and participate in voting while presiding over the parliamentary business.
The landmark judgement was given after private legal practitioner, Justice Abdulai, filed a case against the Attorney-General to contest the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu’s decision to count himself during a vote to approve the 2022 budget.
The Court struck out Order 109 (3) of the Standing Orders of Parliament because it found the Order unconstitutional.
