Veteran lawyer Chris Ackumey has shared that there should be no confusion as to how punitive measures should be taken against Members of Parliament (MPs) who created disorder during the elections of the Speaker of the 8th Parliament.
According to him, at the time of the scuffle in parliament, these parliamentarians had not been sworn in as parliamentarians and as such they committed crimes as citizens of Ghana and not in their capacity as MPs.
Speaking to Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, he stated: “In parliament, we have the privileges committee. And the privileges committee is by law empowered to deal with any act which is unacceptable as a member of parliament. However, the time that the act was committed, a speaker was not nominated, selected or appointed so we had no speaker.
Secondly since the previous parliament has been dissolved, even if you were a member of the old parliament, you were no more a parliamentarian at the time that the incident happened. And because the new members have also not been sworn in by the speaker, they are not parliamentarians. So at best there is a little bit of lacuna created which we have to look at.
The people must be treated as individuals. At that time those who committed or have done anything to create tension or an activity to bring disorder in the running of an affair of an institution obviously commits a crime. So those who kicked the ballot box had run afoul of the law and must be punished not as parliamentarians because they were not parliamentarians at the time that the offence was committed. We could see them as civilians who were about to be sworn into parliament”.
A brawl in parliament began when Carlos Ahenkorah, Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema West constituency, snatched some paper ballots during an overnight vote to determine the house speaker.
Prior to this, the Member of Parliament for Asawase,Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, and Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu Constituency, John, were seen rushing to where the voting booth and ballot box were and removing them from their place. This was in protest at how some NPP MPs were breaching the ‘secret ballot’ protocol.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
