The Deputy Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Patricia Appiagyei, has warned that the rule of law was being endangered by what she described as Parliament’s endorsement of the Electoral Commission’s (EC) “unlawful and indecent” steps to declare the Kpandai parliamentary seat vacant despite an active court process.
She said the Speaker’s decision to allow the release of a letter by the Clerk of Parliament, which effectively cleared the path for a by-election, represented a sharp departure from long-standing legal and parliamentary convention that no action should be taken when a matter remains before the courts.
Principle
Mrs Appiagyei said this in a statement on the floor of the House today (Friday, December 12, 2025).
She anchored her argument on the principle that once a suit is pending before a court of competent jurisdiction, the parties involved must maintain the status quo ante until all judicial processes, including appeals and applications for stay of execution, are fully exhausted.
Any attempt to alter the situation, she stressed, risked rendering the court’s eventual decision meaningless and constitutes contempt.
“A standard law and procedure in the courts and in the parts of Parliament of Ghana is that when a matter or a process is the subject matter of a suit pending before a court of competence, no one should do anything to take any step whatsoever onto all the process a party is entitled to have been exhausted,” she said.
Judiciary undermined
The Deputy Minority Leader warned that allowing the EC to conduct a by-election while the dispute remained unresolved undermines the judiciary’s authority.
“No court in the civilised world will allow the party for whom judgment has been given for the cow to slaughter it while there is any process touching and concerning the matter before the court,” she added.
Mrs Appiagyei argued that the EC’s decision, and Parliament’s acquiescence, could plunge the country into what she called a “lawless jungle,” especially if the court later upheld the original election result or orders a limited rerun in specific polling stations.
In such a scenario, she lamented that the country would face the awkward situation of having sworn in a person who might not legally be entitled to the seat.
Citing precedents including cases involving former MPs including James Gyakye Quayson, she maintained that in all previous instances the sitting MPs were allowed to remain in Parliament until the court processes were concluded.
