Speaker Alban Bagbin has expressed his dissatisfaction with the work of the Privileges Committee of parliament regarding the three MPs who absented themselves from the house beyond the accepted period, allegedly without permission from him.
MPs Adwoa Sarfo, Kennedy Agyapong and Henry Quartey were referred to the committee for questioning on the matter after former MP Ras Mubarak, petitioned the Speaker on their long absence from the house.
The Speaker, a few days ago, said he prefers the house debate the report of the committee and take a decision.
Explaining his reason for his ruling, Mr Bagbin told the parliamentary press corps: “It’s not just Adwoa Sarfo; we referred three [MPs to the privileges committee]. I don’t know if you have the report. If you’ve had access to read the report, you’d understand the basis of my ruling: Representation is so key to democratic governance to be left to the subjective decision of any individual or group of people”.
“It must be the whole; and that report, after reading that report, I went behind the report to do investigations as to what happened at the committee meetings and I’m not satisfied with what happened there”, he noted.
He said: “There’s no way that this can go without the whole house being given the opportunity to debate it. The heavens can come down but that one, the whole house would have to debate it and come out with a decision. It’s not the Speaker that has to declare the vacation of the seat”.
Mr Bagbin explained: “When they say something is automatic, it is somebody that must make it automatic. To start with, the attention must be drawn that the person has been absent for 15 or more sittings. There must be some search to know that the Speaker has not given written permission. These are questions of fact and that cannot just be established by an individual”.
“The Speaker, every day, I give permissions and there’s no way that with this heavy load on me, I’ll be able to say that: ‘Oh, I didn’t give this one permission or I gave this one 10 [days], I gave this one 20 [days]. No. You must get a team to do research, survey, get all the permissions and go through. Don’t forget they are human beings and they can be subjected to influences. Even [with] that, I’m still investigating it and I got reports from civil society organisations that are focused on parliament and they’ve gone to the extent of using the Votes and Proceedings” as the basis for attendance, Mr Bagbin noted.
He said: “Don’t forget that the Constitution doesn’t say attendance to the plenary session. It says attendance to parliament and parliament is not only about the plenary and that is where I have a problem with the decision of the Supreme Court. You can attend parliament without sitting in the plenary. The judges can go to their duty to function in their chambers, in their offices and perform judicial functions there without sitting in the court. Does that mean that they haven’t attended work? Have they absented themselves? So, that is why the earlier judgment says the law and costing of parliament is unknown to the courts, so, you don’t probe into that because you don’t even know it. And, so, I think my friends, now, are going beyond their limit and that is why I did that seminal lecture…”
He pointed out that: “You’d realise that the Court of Appeal talks about more than 15 days but the law doesn’t talk about more than 15 sittings; it says 15 sittings. And, I told you the earlier law was couched in different terms, they were not talking about vacation; it says cease to exist, using the word ‘cease’ and they were talking of a session of parliament and a session is a period of 12 months, that’s one year”.
“I realised in the committee’s report, there was a split and the reason for the split is that they did not probe further”.
“For example, if you say that I got permission from the Speaker, it’s for you to go through the records to see whether he actually got permission from the Speaker. You can’t just take that as the gospel truth. In fact, that was what happened. Or ‘my medical doctor granted me six months’ leave; I should not stress myself, I shouldn’t go to work’. Please, proceed to get the medical doctor’s report. There’s no evidence that that was done and that was taken as the gospel truth”.
“And, so, in that report, if you are telling me that one the committee decides that the reasons given are reasonable that parliament is bound by it and parliament cannot go into it, and automatically the law kicks in, I would beg to differ from that and that is why the whole house, looking at the sanctity of the right of representation, would have to take the decision and I’m very clear in my mind about this”, Mr Bagbin noted.
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