Ghana Supreme Court denies application to reinstate Parliament speaker’s ruling declaring 4 seats vacantts

Ghana’s Supreme Courtroom on Wednesday rejected the Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin’s name for the courtroom to put aside its earlier ruling which suspended the speaker’s determination on October 17 to declare 4 Parliament seats vacant.

The courtroom’s ruling, as delivered by Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, acknowledged it’s a fundamental precept of legislation within the Ghanaian authorized system that the Supreme Courtroom has unique jurisdiction arising from Articles 2 and 130(1) of the Structure to interpret and implement constitutional provisions. Commenting on the import of Article 130(2), the Chief Justice offered that:

…if anybody finds {that a} which means is being given to any provision of the 1992 Structure that the particular person disputes, or that any act is being executed by cause of a disputed which means given to the Structure, then article 2 and article 130(1)(a) mandate that solely the Supreme Courtroom has jurisdiction to supply the individuals of Ghana with the proper interpretation of the supply within the Structure.

On this mild, the Chief Justice discovered that the Speaker’s utility arguing that the Supreme Courtroom has no jurisdiction with respect to Article 97(1)(g) of the 1992 Structure as Article 99 provides dedication over membership of Parliament to the Excessive Courtroom is nothing however a misapprehension and misinformation of the legislation.

Chief Justice Torkornoo acknowledged that the jurisdiction of the Excessive Courtroom with respect to vacant parliamentary seats is a query of reality and never of legislation. Nevertheless, within the current case of Afenyo Markin v Speaker of Parliament and Legal professional Common, whether or not members of the eighth Parliament who’ve filed as impartial candidates to contest for elections for the ninth Parliament are deemed to have vacated their seats within the which means of Article 97(1)(g) is a query of legislation which is to be taken from the interpretation and enforcement of Article 97(1)(g).

The courtroom added that the controversy raised with respect to the propriety of the interpretation of Article 97(1)(g) being given within the Speaker’s ruling on October 17 provides the courtroom the jurisdiction to present a listening to to the plaintiff.