Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has asserted that the Speaker of Parliament’s response to President Akufo-Addo’s letter to Parliament appears to be a good test for the country’s democracy.
The Speaker, Alban Suman Kingsford Bagbin, stated in a 62-point response to the President, amongst other things, that “the House is unable to continue to consider the nominations of His Excellency the President in the “spirit of upholding the rule of law“ until after the determination of the application for interlocutory injunction by the Supreme Court”.
However, the minority in Parliament indicated that they are in full support of the Speaker’s position, indicating that there are also some grounds to impeach the President if he fails to sign the anti-gay bill.
Reacting to the development on Ghana Tonight, on Wednesday, March 20, lawyer Martin Kpebu said, “This is typically a tit-for-tat situation which is that because the President has refused to assent to the anti-LGBTQ bill then the Speaker also has grounds to use the same argument in order not to proceed with the approval of the ministers.”
“In fairness, this situation that has arisen about Parliament not being able to proceed with the approval of the ministers based on the same fact that there’s a case in court is good for our constitutional democracy, it’s good, so we will get to test the boundaries of cooperations between Parliament and the Executive,” he stated.
Kpebu underscored that the current constitution gives so much power to the Executive even more than anticipated, hence, the ‘impasse’ between the two arms of government bodes well for the separation of powers.
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“So on occasions like this where Parliament also has the opportunity to extract or pull back some of the power we should be interested in that and excited that maybe through compromises they will find a way to get a solution,” said Kpebu.
However, the human rights lawyer expressed satisfaction with the Speaker’s decision to suspend considerations of the President’s ministerial nominations.
[CARTOON] Ghanaian Family Values: Does Oga care?#TV3GH pic.twitter.com/9vwm5PWDzh
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) March 21, 2024
According to him, the government is “already over-bloated” and hence an attempt to freeze the approval of new ministers is welcoming.
“The context is that the government is over-bloated, this government is over-bloated so if these ministers don’t get approved that will be good riddance for our democracy,” said lawyer Kpebu, adding that “let the ministers who are in office see how they can cope with the situation with the caretaker ministers, etc.”
Meanwhile, the majority side of Parliament has criticised Speaker Bagbin for using what they described as “unsavory words” at President Akufo-Addo.