Bagbin calls for Executive, Parliament collaboration

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has called for enhanced collaboration between the Executive arm of government and Parliament to promote the introduction of private members’ bills.

The introduction of the private members Bill has been on the back burner since 1994 until July 16, 2020, when it finally saw the light of day. Throwing more light on Article 108 of the 1992 Constitution, the Speaker told students of the University of Ghana, Legon, Parliament House, which was marking its 20th anniversary last Tuesday that the apparent impasse between the Executive and Parliament on assenting to private members' Bill was the misinterpretation of the article.

Mr Bagbin told the students how previous Speakers had consistently shot it down until the era of Prof. Mike Aaron Oquaye. He said the article did not prohibit the introduction of the private members' Bills which was alluded to by Prof. Mike Oquaye in 1998,  years before he became the Speaker.

The Speaker recalled how Prof. Oquaye organised a workshop for MPs to share his opinion on the article and said that it did not prohibit the introduction of private members' bills.

He said other Commonwealth countries had similar provisions in their Constitution yet passed the introduction of private members' Bills and wondered why it was a problem in Ghana.

Military

Touching on some issues including the erroneous impression that the military was undemocratic, he said the perception by some Ghanaians that the military was not democratic was not true.

Mr Bagbin held the view that democracy emanated from the military and, therefore, it could not be true that the military was not democratic. The speaker explained that Ghana's democracy was hybrid, a combination of the Westminster and the American system also known as the Anglo-Saxon.

That, according to him, was also interpolated with some of the traditional systems "bringing direct and indirect democracy together." Tracing the history of democracy to the student MPs, he mentioned in particular General Pericles, a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens.

He said as a military and one of the key inventors of democracy, it could, therefore, not be true that the military worldwide was undemocratic. "Many of the Presidents in the United States came from the military. That should tell you how much the military values democracy," the Speaker said.