Impasse between the executive and the legislature is good for Ghana's democracy - Martin Kpebu

Private legal practitioner and human rights lawyer, lawyer Martin Kpebu has maintained that the Rt. Hon. Speaker’s response to President Akufo-Addo’s letter to Parliament appears to be a good test for the Ghana’s democracy.

The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, stated in a 62-point response to the President, amongst other things, that “the House is unable to continue to consider the nominations of His Excellency the President in the “spirit of upholding the rule of law “until after the determination of the application for interlocutory injunction by the Supreme Court.”

The speaker's position comes in the wake of the letter sent to the speaker through the clerk of parliament restraining him from transmitting the anti-LGBTQI+ bill following two suits laid before the apex court.

The letter signed by the Secretary to the President, Nana Asante Bediatuo conveyed that parliament should cease and desist from transmitting the bill to the office of the President until the Supreme Court rules on the motions presented before the court.

Reacting to the ongoing impasse between the executive and the legislature, lawyer Martin Kpebu on March 20 said, “this is typically a tit-for-tat situation which is that because the president has refused to assent to the anti-LGBTQ bill then the Speaker also has grounds to use the same argument in order not to proceed with the approval of the ministers.”

“In fairness, this situation that has arisen about Parliament not being able to proceed with the approval of the ministers based on the same fact that there’s a case in court is good for our constitutional democracy, it’s good, so we will get to test the boundaries of cooperation between Parliament and the Executive,” lawyer Martin Kpebu stressed.

Lawyer Martin Kpebu, speaking on Ghana Tonight on TV3 on Wednesday, 20th March, added that the current constitution gives so much power to the Executive even more than anticipated, hence, the ‘impasse’ between the two arms of government bodies will strengthen the democratic process of the country.

“So on occasions like this where parliament also has the opportunity to extract or pull back some of the power we should be interested in that and excited that maybe through compromises they will find a way to get a solution,” said Kpebu.

However, the human rights lawyer expressed satisfaction with the Speaker’s decision to suspend considerations of the President’s ministerial nominations, adding that the government is "already overbloated” and hence an attempt to freeze the approval of new ministers is welcoming.

“The context is that the government is over-bloated, this government is over-bloated, so if these ministers don’t get approved, that will be good riddance for our democracy,” said lawyer Kpebu, adding that, “let the ministers who are in office see how they can cope with the situation with the caretaker ministers, etc.”

While the minority side are in full support of the speaker’s position, the majority also argues that the speaker's action is unconstitutional hence admonishing the general public to disregard the directives of the Speaker of Parliament.