Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has described the judgment in Justice Abdulai versus Attorney General as the cardinal sin of the Judiciary.
According to him, the case that was taken to the Supreme Court and which the apex court passed judgment on was not a dispute between the Speaker of the House and his deputy.
Justice Abdulai, he said, is not a Member of Parliament and has not worked in Parliament before and yet during the entire duration of the case Parliament as an institution was never informed or consulted to correct factual errors to evidence presented to the court.
Delivering the concluding remarks at the maiden Speaker’s Seminal Lecture on Tuesday, 31st May, 2022 at the International Conference Center, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin noted comments on what occasioned the Majority walk out on Friday, November 26, 2021 is not borne by fact or evidence.
The Speaker, he said, only directed non-MP ministers to leave the Chamber as the question to be put will be a voice vote and they, by law, are not to participate in the decision making.
He said, “I never talked about Minister of Finance but in the Supreme Court judgment it found expression. Again there was an implication about bias of a Speaker in the judgment.”
“If Parliament had been given the opportunity to be heard, they would not have been misled to some of these things.”
Speaker Bagbin noted there were three cases before the Supreme Court on the same matter; one by journalist Richard Sky, another by one Suleman Adamu versus the Attorney General and the Clerk of Parliament.
According to him, this was the only case that Parliament was aware of because the Clerk to Parliament was served and the Attorney General was considered the Counsel for the Legislature.
“We gave the Attorney General instructions on that particular case, which was not even heard at all and it did not find expression in the Supreme Court. The Richard Sky case was said to be moot because of the Abdulai versus the Attorney General, which Parliament had no knowledge of.”
“It is not Parliament that took the case to the Supreme Court and it was not a dispute between me and my deputy that took the case to the Supreme Court, which was being settled by the Supreme Court.”
“According to my good friend Professor Kweku Asare aka Prof. Azar, he says that SALL is the cardinal sin of the 8th Parliament; But this Justice Abdulai versus the Attorney General is the cardinal sin of the Judiciary.”
The Speaker argued as an institution meant to dispense justice, the Supreme Court should at least have invited Parliament to hear its side of the story but that did not happen.
The Apex Court, he said, used the political question doctrine because their jurisprudence is based on the statement that the law is in the bosom of the judge and because the court tried to use that tyrannically the Justices had to find ways and means out.
He said, “That is not the case in the UK jurisprudence. In the UK jurisprudence the law is the law is the law.”
“However, we are bound by the judgment of the Supreme Court and we have been directed to go and look at our Standing Orders; what is the way forward for us and how do we resolve this,” he quizzed?
The Speaker pointed out that these issues did not find expression in any of the presentations but stressed the lecture started on a good note and will likely generate debate on the topic for a better positioning of Parliament.
He expressed hope the lecture will be institutionalized to offer platform for discussing such important governance matters.
The lecture is on the topic, ‘Parliament, its business and the Supreme Court in perspective.
Prof. E. Kofi Abotsi Dean, UPSA Law School was the main Speaker.
There were also presentations from Thaddeus Sory, private legal practitioner & managing partner at Sory @ Law; Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee, private legal practitioner & lecturer, UG Law School; and Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, Executive Director of IDEG.
Source: MyPublisher24.com