Private Legal Practitioner, Justice Abdulai, has disclosed that the position of the Speaker of Parliament and Deputy Speakers are one and the same.
Justice Abdulai noted that the moment an MP becomes a Deputy Speaker of Parliament, he or she is no longer an ordinary Member of Parliament. He indicated that the constitution is clear on the matter under Article, 297(h), which he argued, states that “while directing or empowering a public officer to do an act or thing otherwise applying to him by the designation of his office, include[s] his successors in office and all his deputies and assistants”.
Justice Abdulai explained that “it gets worse” when Article 295(2) is considered as it deepens the position that he outlined in Article 297 which says that “a reference to the holder of an office by the term designating his office, shall unless the context otherwise required be construed as including a reference to the person for the time being lawfully acting or performing the functions of that office”.
“Now, the combination of these two provisions make the office of the Speaker and his deputies, as far as the constitution is concerned, one and the same. This is why as I indicated earlier that person is unable to occupy any ministerial position”.
Justice Abdulai
The private legal practitioner iterated that the implication of this is that when referring to a public officer, his deputies or any person acting in that office, they are one and the same. As such, they have the same authority, they have the same powers [and] they have the “same literally” everything.
Supreme Court’s ruling on Deputy Speaker
Meanwhile, Justice Abdulai, who doubles as the Plaintiff in the Deputy Speaker’s voting right case, has emphasized that, as a result of his finding, he is empowered to seek a review of the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling on the matter. He opined that he has managed to access some information he reckons will convince the Supreme Court to revise its earlier ruling.
Justice Abdulai indicated that because his legal team were “bereft with those litanies of information”, it served as basis for the decision that resulted on the 9th of March ruling by the Supreme Court. Owing to this, he revealed that having a second look at that decision will inure to the benefit of everyone, Ghanaians in particular.
“I feel strongly in my position that considering the judicial antecedents to our present circumstances, we have a lot of information that could have guided all of us; myself, the Attorney General and the Supreme Court, for that matter, in coming out with the decision that they came up with”.
Justice Abdulai
It will be recalled that the Supreme Court presided over by Justice Jones Dotse unanimously ruled that a Deputy Speaker can be counted during the formation of a quorum for parliamentary decision-making and participate in voting while presiding over the parliamentary business.
The landmark judgement was given after Justice Abdulai, filed a case against the Attorney General to contest the First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu’s decision to count himself during a vote to approve the 2022 budget. As part of his admission, he requested the Supreme Court to interpret Articles 102 and 104 of the 1992 Constitution and declare the action of Mr Osei-Owusu as unconstitutional.
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