Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has reiterated that he is not bound to accept directives or instructions from any President, stressing that his allegiance is to Members of Parliament who elected him and to the country as a whole.
Speaking during a courtesy call by the Supreme Court 150th Anniversary Planning Committee on Thursday, June 11, the Speaker explained that he was elected by an electoral college and is not an appointee of President John Dramani Mahama.
“I am elected by an electoral college. But in the minds of the populace, I mean, they still refer to me as appointed, and I have to keep on correcting them that I’m not the president’s appointee. No, I am not. The Speaker is not appointed by the President.
He added: “The President will have a say, but that say doesn’t mean that that will be the intention of the House, and we’ve seen it in this House, at least in my case in 2021. The Presidency’s say did not carry the day, so it means that really the Speaker is an appointee of the members of the House, and so I owe my loyalty and allegiance to them and to the nation. I don’t have to listen to what His Excellency and the rest will do. They don’t do it. Yes, I can listen to them because it’s part of the conversation, but I am not bound by what they say, and I think that I have tried in that respect. It’s very easy.”
He also called for urgent reforms to the process of appointing Supreme Court judges, arguing that the judiciary should have greater control over its own leadership rather than external appointment.
“The appointments need urgent attention. We don’t want to allow other people to appoint who should be a judge or who should be the head of judges. They should have the opportunity to do it themselves. That profession should have the opportunity to do it themselves. In Parliament, the Speaker, MPs are appointed? No,” he said.
