So Parliament erred

On the midnight of January 7, 2021, Ghana was plagued with an extremely deep scar that will
take a very long time before it gets eroded from the minds of many Ghanaians.

Personally, after taking time to reflect on the hugely unpalatable events of that dawn, I resorted to delving deeper into our Laws so as to be able to find out as to whether or not those ‘unparliamentary acts’ could have been avoided.

And fortunately, it is now settled that the august House (Legislators) of this country ERRED on points of law.

According to section 11, sub-section 1 of the Presidential (Transition) Act, 2012 (Act 845), which has been titled “Election of Speaker of Parliament,” it provides thus: “TWO DAYS BEFORE THE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT, the Clerk to Parliament shall summon a meeting of the elected members of Parliament to

(a) elect the Speaker,

(b) elect the Deputy Speakers, and,

(c) take the oaths of office as members of Parliament.”

Now, what the above means is that, if the institution of Parliament had ensured adherence to the provision of the Act 845 quoted supra, and did the honourable thing by electing the Speaker two days before the dissolution of the 7th parliament, in this case on January 5, 2021 (not necessarily in the dawn), all the hullabaloos and the imminent disgrace that was staring at us
right on our faces could have been avoided.

Let all Ghanaians muster the courage to tell it right in the face of anybody who breaks the law so that we could collectively enhance and deepen our subscription to democracy and to the Rule.