Private legal practitioner Prof. Kwaku Asare aka Kwaku Azar has underscored the need for us to stay the hands of politicizing the office of the Speaker of Parliament, “an office that we have been trying to depoliticize over the last three decades”.
The lawyer in a post posited that “While questions can be raised as to whether these arrangements have met the framers’ aspiration, there is no gainsaying the fact that the political impartiality of the Speaker is one of the office’s most important features.
We must continue to work hard to institutionalize the norm that the person presiding as the Speaker is in all aspects of the job a completely non-partisan figure”.
Read the full post below
The requirement that the Speaker not be an MP and that the Deputy Speakers not be from the same political parties are arrangements to enhance the political impartiality of the person presiding over the proceedings of the House.
These arrangements are based on our parliamentary history and distinguish our Constitution and Parliament from other countries.
While questions can be raised as to whether these arrangements have met the framers’ aspiration, there is no gainsaying the fact that the political impartiality of the Speaker is one of the office’s most important features.
We must continue to work hard to institutionalize the norm that the person presiding as the Speaker is in all aspects of the job a completely non-partisan figure.
MPs who are elected as Deputy Speakers should understand that they wield substantial powers, which preclude them from being appointed as Ministers and from functioning as ordinary MPs while presiding over the House.
Their constituents must understand the power, privileges, pork but also the limitations that follow from being named as Deputy Speakers.
We must stay the hands of politicizing an office that we have been trying to depoliticize over the last three decades.
#SALL is the cardinal sin of the 8th Parliament.
Da Yie!
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
