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Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has advanced the view that there are currently 274 Members of Parliament in the lawmaking chamber.
According to him, the people of Assin North Constituency in the Central Region are without a representative after the courts asked their Member of Parliament, MP, James Gyakye Quayson from holding himself out as their representative.
The Majority Leader, who is also MP for Suame, in a yet-to-be-aired Joy News interview stressed that the decision of the courts meant that the Assin North seat had automatically become vacant.
Asked whether or not it did not require the Speaker formally to declare the seat vacant, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu quoted portions of the Constitution that supported his view that there is automaticity that comes with the court’s pronouncement.
“They (the Minority) know that technically, the Assin North person (Member of Parliament) has been ousted by the courts, they know. That seat doesn’t have to be declared vacant because if … what is the process of declaring vacancy?”
In explaining why the vacancy did not require the Speaker’s pronouncement, he added: “…that is not the case. The Constitution provides in Article 97, that a Member of Parliament shall vacate his seat in Parliament if any circumstances arrive such that if he were not a Member of Parliament, would cause him to be disqualified or ineligible under Article 94 of this Constitution.
“There is that automaticity, you shall vacate your seat, who says that it must necessarily come from the mouth of somebody? So, if the person decides not to make the pronouncement, that person will be there? No?” he quizzed.
Background
James Gyakye Quayson polled 17,498 votes against 14,793 by the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Abena Durowaa Mensah in the December 7, 2020, parliamentary election.
On December 30, 2020, a resident of Assin North, Mr Ankomah-Nimfah, filed a parliamentary election petition at the Cape Coast High Court challenging the eligibility of Mr Quayson to be an MP.
On July 28, 2021, following that petition by Mr Ankomah-Nimfah, the Cape Coast High Court declared Quayson’s election as void, on the basis that he owed allegiance to another country other than Ghana, contrary to Article 94(2) of the 1992 Constitution.
It was the considered view of the court that as of the time Mr Quayson filed to contest the MP position, he had not renounced his Canadian citizenship and, therefore, he was not qualified to become a legislator.
The court, presided over by Justice Kwasi Boakye, ordered the EC to organise a new election in the constituency.
Quayson then filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal challenging the judgment of the Cape Coast High Court. That case is still ongoing.
