First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu has stated that all his rulings whilst chairing proceedings of the House are based on law and practice.
Mr Osei-Owusu fondly referred to as Joe Wise said this in response to claims that he overturned a ruling by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, who admitted a private member’s motion by the minority that was seeking to probe government’s COVID-19 expenditure.
Speaker Bagbin had described in an earlier communication to the House that the decision by Osei-Owusu to overrule his decision to admit the motion as illegal.
“The penchant of the Deputy Speaker to set aside my rulings is illegal, unconstitutional and offensive,” Mr. Bagbin claimed.
However, Mr Osei-Owusu responded that Speaker’s description of his ruling is most unfair and totally un-reflective of his conduct as the First Deputy Speaker in the 7th and 8th Parliament.
“Ladies and gentlemen, admission of a motion by the speaker, is an administrative exercise. When the Speaker admits a motion and forwards it through the process to the Business Committee and same is programmed and advertised on the Order Paper, that marks the end of that process. The admission of the motion is complete, ‘A fais accompli’.
“I cannot by any stretch of imagination see how that can be called a ruling of Mr. Speaker and how I can overturn any such ruling,” he queried?
The First Deputy Speaker however explained that once a motion has been advertised on the Order Paper before the House, a member is entitled to raise an objection to question its legality or otherwise.
He stressed that when any such objection is raised and argued as was the case on Tuesday February 22, 2022, the presiding officer whether it is Mr. Speaker himself, any of his deputies or a member elected to preside, that presiding officer is duty-bound to make a ruling after that objection has been argued.
“After I heard arguments from the proponents of the motion and adversaries, I was convinced that the objection was well placed and I, therefore, sustained it.
“It was never a review of any decision earlier taken by Mr. Speaker to admit the motion to set up a special committee, as he seems to suggest in his formal communication,” he added.
Previous examples
The First Deputy Speaker also decried the previous example, which Mr Bagbin cited as insubordination.
“Mr Speaker proceeded to cite as an example, my ruling on the motion by the Majority to declare the purported vote to reject the 2022 budget by 137 of the 275 Member House of Parliament as falling short of the number required to take a decision and therefore unconstitutional, null and void.
“In fact, in his statement from the Chair, subsequent to that ruling, he described my conduct as tantamount to in-subordination.
“On that occasion I characteristically elected not to comment on Mr Speaker’s statement in public in order not to create the impression that there’s tension between him and his Deputy.
“There is however no doubt that in putting the question when the record showed that there were less than half of all members of Parliament in the chamber Mr speaker had contravened Order 109(1) of the Standing Orders and more importantly Art 104(1) of the 1992 Constitution.
“The purported decision of the house was a nullity and I rightly so declared it.
Firm belief
The First Deputy Speaker who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai reiterated that he has never shied away from showing his disagreement with the Speaker if need be and noted that is what democracy is about and ought to be.
Mr. Speaker, he said, should rather have the courage to accept that others may hold a different view from his own even if they are subordinate to him.
He said the recent comment by Alban Bagbin on his conduct sets a dangerous path for Ghana’s democracy and an epitome of intolerance of differing views.
He argued that holding a different view on issues from Mr. Speaker should not be something new and decried that Speaker Bagbin appears to think holding a different view from him is unbecoming and an insubordination of a deputy speaker.
Deputy Speakers or any person presiding, he said, exercises the same powers and applies the same Standing Orders and Constitutional provisions to manage the House while on the Chair.
“It is not the case of the President and his Vice as Mr. Speaker suggests,” he stated.
