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MR SPEAKER, SIR, YOU HAVE UNILATERALLY ABOLISHED
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GHANA'S PARLIAMENT!
By
Cameron Duodu
September 06, 2016
Perhaps I should not
have been surprised when I heard that the
Speaker of the National Assembly, The Right
Honourable Doe Adjaho, had disallowed the Motion
the Minority wanted to present to the House,
asking it to investigate reports that President
John Mahama had received a Chevrolet car as a
“gift” from a Burkinabe contractor. The
contractor subsequently obtained some contracts
from the Government of Ghana, and so, the “gift”
can be considered a “bribe”-- and in its
oversight role, that's a proper issue fior
Parliament to be concerned with.
I should
not have been surprised at Adjaho's action
because the Government of which he is a member
(he was put in the job of Speaker of the
Legislature by the Majority NDC, which is in
power at the executive level as well as in the
Legislature) is so notorious for flouting normal
rules with impunity that it is almost naïve to
expect it to do anything else.
Indeed, Mr
Adjaho had set a precedent for himself in
“impunity” by acting in precisely the same
manner, over the sale of Merchant Bank to a
company called Fortiz in 2014. He got away with
that, thanks to the iability of the Opposition
to demonstrate that he had flouted the
Constitution in blocking the parliamentary
scrutiny of a transaction that involved public
funds, namely, capital taken from the Social
Security and National Insurance Trust. How can
one man impose his understanding of what the
functions of Parliament are, on the elected
representatives of the people? After all, was it
not Parlaiemtnt that voted him in as its
Speaker? How can the "servant" force his point
of view upon his employer?
But even
though in blocking Parliamentary scrutiny of the
sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz, Mr Adjaho acted
ultra vires, (that is, he acted “beyond the
powers of his office”) he at least had the fig
leaf of the sub judice rule to cover his
patently partisan act. (In fairness to the
Opposition, they might have bowed to a rather
narrow interpretation of the sub judice rule.)
A narrow interpretation of the sub judice
rule? Yes -- it is a well-known stratagem for
clever lawyers, to rush to file a writ in court,
when they want to gag both the media (and in
this case, even Parliament) on realising that
embarrassing disclosures might ensue from an
open, public and privileged discussion of a
matter – especially one relating to a dubious
business deal.
In the Mahama/Chevrolet
car matter, however, no recoursethe issue is not
even before a court! It is only before the
Commission for Human Rights And Administrative
Justice (CHRAJ). So, in preventing Parliament –
which has so much power that a popular adage
says it “can do anything except change a man
into a woman!”) – Mr Adjaho has dealt two deadly
blows to Ghana's 1992 Constitution: (1) he has
unilaterally upgraded the status of the
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative
Justice to full judicial status, in direct
contravention to the Constitution and (2) he has
thereby unilaterally abolished the power of the
Parliament of Ghana given to it by the people of
Ghana!The Opposition sasys it is "embarrassed".
Well, it shouldn't be --Joe Adaho dseserves to
be brought down for committing treason against
the Parliament of Ghana, and thereby, against
the peopleof Ghana.
For what he has done
is totally unacceptable, because in the very
first words of the Constitution, it is clearly
stated that:
QUOTE: “The Sovereignty of
Ghana resides in the people of Ghana in whose
name and for whose welfare the powers of
government are to be exercised in the manner and
within the limits laid down in this
Constitution.” UNQUOTE
In other words,
SOVEREIGNTY RESIDES IN THE PEOPLE, AND THEREBY,
THEIR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES; i.e. PARLIAMENT!
Indeed, CHRAJ would be the first body to
express shock at the way Mr Adjaho has used a
CHRAJ investigation to block an investigation by
our sovereign Parliament. For on its own
webpage, the CHRAJ acknowledges unambiguously
that:
QUOTE: The Commission is not a judicial
body and cannot review decisions that have
previously been decided by a competent court.
UNQUOTE
So, if the CHRAJ does not
consider itself either as a "judicial body" or a
"competent court", where did Adjaho get the idea
that a CHRAJ investigation can preclude
Parliament from scrutinising any behaviour of a
person holding public office? Who gave Mr Adjaho
the power to clothe the proceedings of the CHRAJ
with the mantle of sub judice? (By the way, as a
matter of interest, the sub judice principle is,
itself, under severe attack, on the grounds that
it is antiquiated and that no modern judge worth
his/her salt would take the slightest notice of
anything said elsewhere about a case before him
or her, when judges are enjoined to consider
only evidence adduced before their courts.)
I have to remind Mr Doe Adjaho – again (as I
did when I put him on my "New Year Honours List"
in January 2015) – that the position of Speaker
of the National Assembly is not one to be
dignified only with “silk hoses and patent
leather shoes” (the garb favoured by the Speaker
of the House of Commons and adopted, to my
knowkledge, by Speakers of the Parliament of
Ghana, forllowing a precedent set by Sir
Emmanuel Charles Quist!)
Despite the
superficial frills, the position of Speaker is
one of great trust. To be given the power to
oversee the propriety of what is said and doner
by the elected representatives of the people on
behalf of their electors, is to be placed in
charge of the most important right that any
people can possess – freedom of speech. The
Speaker must facilitate and protect this right,
not impede it.
That is why, if I were an
MP, I would go straight to the Supreme Court to
seek an interpretation of the notion that if the
CHRAJ is seized of a matter, then Parliament is
automatically prevented from delving into it.
Indeed, if we were in a country where people
cared enough about their constitutional rights,
a public appeal would be launched immediately
asking for donations to finance a suit at the
Supreme Court to declare the Speaker's assault
on democracy unlawful.
May I point Mr
Adjaho (and the Clerk of Parliament, whose
technocratic name Mr Adjaho ingloriously invoked
in making his outrageous and scandalous ruling)
to what the website of the House of Commons –
the location from which the mystifying notion of
a “Speaker” who does not “speak” in debates
originated (!) – has to say about the office of
the Speaker:
QUOTE: “The Speaker is the
chief officer and highest authority of the House
of Commons and must remain politically impartial
at all times. [emphasis added]....The Speaker
keeps order and calls MPs to speak. Speakers
still stand in general elections. [But] They are
generally unopposed by the major political
parties, who will not field a candidate in the
Speaker's constituency. [emphasis added]. During
a general election, Speakers do not campaign on
any political issues [emphasis added]. UNQUOTE
It is the enforcement of rules like the
above that enables the British to have
confidence in the integrity of their high
officials. Even so, they are not fully satisfied
with their democracy, and keep tinkering with
it.
If our democracy is to last; if it is to be
respected by the populace as a system that can
effectively prevent corruption from occuring in
our nations's affairs; then we must force our
public office-holders to exhibit the same
integrity
as their British counterparts do. And we can
only do that if we ensure that officials like
the Speaker of Parliament understand and operate
our system, both according to the words written
in the Constitution and the spirit behind those
fine words.
In other words, Mr Speaker,
we don't call you 'Panin' (Elder) for nothing
(as our talking drums would tell you, if you
knew how to listen to them!). You are supposed
to repay the privileges inherent in your
position, by acting in a manner that would not
disgrace your counterparts in other democratic
domains. For, after doing what you have done,
how can you -- and your Clerk -- hold your heads
high, if you are invited to conferences of the
Inter-Parliamentary organisations of the
democratic world?
--
www.cameronduodu.com
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