Ace Investigative Journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has reacted to the Supreme Court’s expeditious nature of handling parliament’s seat vacancy controversy.
Manasseh believes it is unfair for the SC to seemingly prioritise the New Patriotic Party’s case against the speaker of parliament over some issues that remain pending despite being initiated in the same SC for some years now.
The Supreme Court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Gertrude Tokornoo granted the NPP caucus an injunction order to stay the speakers pronouncement on some four seats in parliament. The injunction was granted just few hours after filing the lawsuit and few hours after the speaker’s declaration in parliament.
The case has been settled today, with the SC delivering a judgement in favor of the plaintiff, Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin.
But Manasseh has expressed that the alacrity with which the case was determined raises concerns about how other issues namely a case about “a bill passed in February” by parliament and the case of SALL, a consituent without representation in parliament for four years now remain unresolved by the SC.
The journalist speculated that had SALL been a stronghold of the ruling NPP, it would not have remained four years without a MP.
According to him, the Electoral Commission would have employed all legal processes to conduct an election within the area.
Therefore, he believes citizens should be concerned about the coutry’s judicial system just as people had subjected the speaker of parliament to various forms of criticisms following his controversial pronouncement on the four seats.
“When Parliament didn’t sit for a few days, the Chief Justice called it a constitutional crisis. She’s leading a panel of judges to expedite the case brought to the apex court by the aggrieved NPP side in Parliament. When the same Parliament passed a bill in February, and the President refused to receive it for signing into law, the Supreme Court is taking forever to settle that case before it. Proponents of the law recently protested against the delay in hearing that case.
In the NPP’s parliamentary case, the same court is sprinting. What is the point in declaring a constitutional crisis over lack of parliamentary proceedings when the outcome of parliamentary proceedings is ignored by the executive and the judiciary doesn’t see it fit to expeditiously resolve the matter brought before it?
Two months to the next election, it is unacceptable that a constituency would not have an MP, but Ghana seems okay that the people of SALL have not had representation in parliament for FOUR YEARS. The court case relating to that matter is dragging at the pace of a wounded snail.
The average Ghanaian with some modicum of honesty in their blood would agree that if SALL had been an NPP stronghold, it would not have gone four years without an MP. The Electoral Commission would have completed all legal processes to pave the way for an election there.
This justice system is worse than the constitutional crisis in Parliament. Those chiding the Speaker of Parliament should equally be worried about Ghana’s judiciary and the conduct of institutions of the state that are supposed to be independent,” he wrote on X.
https://twitter.com/Manasseh_Azure/status/1856293237842960684
The journalist’s comments and the Supreme Court’s judgement also follow a recent data from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which discloses a drastic decline in the autonomy of the judiciary system and impartiality of Ghanaian judges.
The data revealed that from 2018 to 2023, the independence rate of the judicial system dropped significantly to 50%, having previously maintained a 100% record between 2014 and 2017.
Source: Dehotpress
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