Speaker of Parliament does not declare MP seats vacant - Bagbin insists

Alban Bagbin, Speaker of Parliament, has noted that it is not within his power to declare any MP's seat vacant.

According to him, the clause that when an MP absents themselves from the House for 15 or more sittings, they automatically vacate their seat can not be

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He said before a seat can be declared vacant, the MP's attention must be drawn to the fact that he or she has been absent for 15 or more sittings without written permission.

He added, that the absentee MP must be given a fair hearing before a decision can be taken based on the response given.

"It is not the Speaker that has to declare the vacation of the seat. When they say something is automatic, it is somebody that must make it automatic. To start with, the attention must be drawn that the person has been absent for 15 or more sittings, there must be some search to know that the Speaker has not given written permission," Alban Bagbin explained.

"These are questions of facts which cannot be established by just an individual. The Speaker every day, I give permission and there is no way that with this heavy load on me, I will be able to say that I didn’t give this one permission or I gave this person ten or that person twenty, no! You must get a team to research and get all the permissions and go through; don’t forget they are humans and can be subjected to influences; even though I’m still investigating it and I got reports from Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, that are focused on Parliament and they have gone to the extent of using the votes and proceedings – which is the basis for attendance…," he added.

Explaining why he decided that the entire House had to debate the privileges committee's report in the case of three absentee MPs of the ruling New Patriotic Party, NPP, he stated, "representation is so key to democratic governance to let to the subjective decision of any group of individuals. After reading the PC report, I went behind the report and do investigations as to what happened at the committee meetings and I am not satisfied with what happened there.

"There is no way this can go without the whole House being given the opportunity to debate. The heavens can come down but that one the whole House has to debate it and come out with a decision."

"I realised in the committee’s report, there was a split and the reason for the split is that they did not probe further…in that report, if you are telling me once the committee decides that the reasons given are reasonable and parliament must be bound and parliament cannot go into it and automatically the law kicks in, I will beg to differ from that and that is why the whole house, looking at the sanctity of the right of representation would have to take a decision and I am very clear in my mind about this."

Background

Before going on recess in July, Mr. Bagbin deferred his ruling on whether the Dome-Kwabenya seat should be declared vacant or not following Madam Safo’s failure to honour an invite by the Privileges Committee on her continuous absence from Parliament.

Mr. Bagbin, on May 4, referred Madam Safo, Mr. Henry Quartey, MP of Ayawaso Central, and Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, MP, Assin Central, to the Privileges Committee for absenting themselves from 15 sittings of the House without his permission.

That was during the First Session of the Eighth Parliament.
The Committee failed to achieve a consensus in its recommendations on whether absenting herself for more than the mandatory 15 days without permission warranted her seat being declared vacant.

The Majority, however, wants the seat declared vacant without delay in line with stated constitutional provisions.

It observed that Madam Safo failed to take advantage of the numerous opportunities to explain her absence without leave.

PEN/SARA