A view of Ghana’s Parliament with MP’s seated
A former Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, has faced legal contention over his move to get the Speaker of Parliament to declare four seats vacant.
In a petition submitted to the Speaker, the NDC lawmaker argued that if approved, this move will alter the composition of the House regarding which party forms the Majority and Minority Caucus.
The question currently under debate is whether the matter should be reported by the political party of candidates who have gone independent or joined other parties, or if an individual can report the case.
Professor Kofi Abotsi, the Dean of the UPSA Law school has shared insight regarding the matter.
Speaking to JoyNews on October 17, 2024, regarding who has the right to report an MP who goes independent or joins another political party, he explained that anyone, regardless of their status as an MP or not, can take such action.
According to him, no single party should have the exclusive right to mediate in a process of this gravity due to the serious repercussions involved.
“… If a person sits in Parliament unqualified, in this case, if the person cross carpets and by reason of that the person is supposed to lose his membership of Parliament, if that person continues to sit in Parliament, whether or not a party reports, whether or not it takes steps and therefore the Speaker acts in a manner that ultimately results in the expulsion of the person, whether or not any such thing happens, the person would have been sitting in parliament unconstitutionally, which means they would have been sitting in Parliament unqualified, would have committed constitutional crime as spelt out in the constitution.
“It undermines the argument that a party should the one to ordinarily report or even an MP or whether or not we should even do anything at all about this before something happens. If a person sits in Parliament unelected or rather unconstitutionally, the person’s actions by way of voting and other consequential remedies, including his representation of people he’s been elected into Parliament for, that representation would have been nullified and will have a huge repercussion,” he said.
Prof. Abotsi added that a party that stands to lose can choose not to report or take action if it is granted exclusive rights to do so, as this would be tantamount to condoning unconstitutionality.
“It fundamentally undermines the argument that the obligation to correct or to ensure that doesn’t happen is exclusively reposed in a party. It undermines the argument and what that means is if the party doesn’t take steps to do that, they are condoning the unconstitutionality, accepting what is otherwise wrongful and the people for whom they are representing in Parliament would be without a representative.
“The whole repercussion is so huge that one party cannot have the exclusive right to mediate the process and that is why in my opinion, everybody, technically, has the right to report this. MPs, parties, non Members of Parliament and ordinary Ghanaian citizens can petition the Speaker of Parliament to ensure that such an anomaly is rectified if ever it happens,” he added.
It is worth noting that Article 97 [1(g) & (h)] of the 1992 Constitution states that “a member of Parliament shall vacate his seat in Parliament if he leaves the party of which he was a member at the time of his election to Parliament to join another party or seeks to remain in Parliament as an independent member; or if he was elected a member of Parliament as an independent candidate and joins a political party.”
MAG/AE
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