Attorney-General’s advice vindicates Speaker of Parliament – Minority

The minority in Parliament has maintained that the Attorney-General’s advice to the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has vindicated the speaker on the decision to halt the approval processes of President Akufo-Addo’s ministerial nominees.

The minority caucus, in a statement dated Monday, March 25, underscored that the Attorney-General, in a letter to the Speaker, seeking to fault the Speaker’s ruling instead “vindicated the position taken by the Rt. Hon. Speaker, who merely took a cue from a precedent that was set by President Akufo-Addo based on an “advice” from this same Attorney-General”.

Mr. Dame, in a March 18 letter to the President, advised President Akufo-Addo not to take any action in relation to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2024 pending a Supreme Court decision on two separate applications for interlocutory injunction against Parliament and the President.

The minority urged Mr. Dame to “prioritise the national interest over his party’s parochial and self-serving interests”.

Also, the minority emphasised that, based on the advice of Mr. Dame on a “non-existing” suit, President Akufo-Addo told the diplomatic community that there was a suit before the Supreme Court preventing him from assenting to the anti-gay bill on March 4, 2024.

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The president therefore called on Ghanaians to wait for the Supreme Court’s determination of the matter. However, the suit was filed at the Supreme Court on March 5, 2024.

“On the contrary, it would be recalled that President Akufo-Addo informed members of the Diplomatic Corps at a meeting at the Peduase Lodge on 4th March, 2024, of a supposed court case at the Supreme Court. The President even went on to state that he was restrained by the filing of a Writ of Summons from assenting to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill.

“It turned out that as of the time that the President was speaking to members of the Diplomatic Corps on the 4th of March, 2024, the writ had not yet been filed in the Supreme Court. The writ was subsequently filed on 5th March 2024.

“If we may ask, between the Rt. Hon. Speaker, who was served with a writ of summons, and the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who acted on the advice of the same Attorney-General on an injunction from a non-existent writ, which of them showed fidelity to the law?”

“The answer obviously is the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament”, the statement stressed.

Meanwhile, the minority caucus further noted the relevance of separating the Attorney-General’s office from the Ministry for Justice.

“If there ever was a time that decoupling the position of the Attorney-General from that of the Minister of Justice was pressing and relevant, it is now,” they stated, indicating that the conduct of Mr. Dame as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice “epitomises all that is inherently wrong in keeping both positions in the same person.”

Read the full statement from the minority caucus below:

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