Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a governance expert, has asserted that democracy as a political system does not thrive based on legalities, even though Ghana’s political space is filled with many legal practitioners.
According to him, democracy thrives on the constitution, which is the basic law in every democratic society, and the ability of political actors to make room for consultative governance.
Speaking on the issue of the pending approval of the ministerial nominees and the ensuing tug-of-war between Parliament and the Executive regarding the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, Prof. Agyeman-Duah maintained that the bill is in the national interest, and thus the executive could have initiated a private consultation to deliberate on the way forward.
“After we have gone through all the arguments and the people’s representative makes the stand it becomes what one may call the national interest that needs to be pursued.
“So when there is this kind of tug-of-war, I would have expected that the executive will initiate perhaps a private consultation instead of stopping the bill from being submitted, or long before even they voted on it, there should have been some kind of private negotiation for the president, letting the legislature know the implications of what they are doing,” Prof. Agyeman-Duah said on The Key Points on Saturday, March 30.
He underscored that such engagements would have yielded some good results and serve as a sign of consensus-building in the interest of the public.
“And of course those in the legislature, Ghanaians, I presume, do have the national interest at heart as their first priority. And therefore, if the executive is able to convince them, they are Ghanaians and know what is good for us and what is not, that will lead to some kind of compromise.
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“That should have been the path to solving this problem, not this tit-for-tat show of power and that kind of stuff,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday, March 27, dismissed an injunction application filed by Dafeamekpor against Parliament’s approval of ministerial nominees by President Akufo-Addo.
In a unanimous decision, the apex court said the injunction application was frivolous and an abuse of the court process.
Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor had filed an injunction restraining Parliament from vetting and approving new ministers as well as reshuffled ministers given various portfolios. He was praying the court to deem the action by President Akufo-Addo as unconstitutional.
The apex court has yet to commence hearing two independent injunction applications challenging, amongst other things, the constitutionality of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2024, passed by Parliament on Wednesday, February 28.