1. Political parties dictating how their MPs must vote or commanding them to boycott a vote
Political parties have no right to command or compel MPs of their party to cast a vote a particular way on specific matters that come before Parliament. While they are elected on a party ticket and caucus as a party in Parliament, MPs do not sit in Parliament as delegates of the party on whose ticket they got elected or even of the local constituents that voted to put them in Parliament.
Belonging to a party suggests, at best, that an MP shares with the party certain fundamental ideals, principles, policies and positions. However, it does not mean he or she must vote in Parliament as commanded or demanded by the party. The MP’s vote in Parliament belongs to the MP, not to the party, the constituency, or any other person or interest.
Moreover, the party’s is not the only interest an MP may weigh in the balance in casting a vote. The interest of the nation, the local constituency, his or her own convictions, all are legitimate reference points for an MP to consider and weigh in the balance, along with their party’s interest, in coming to a decision as to how to cast a vote in Parliament.
If a party disapproves of how an MP votes in Parliament, their only democratic recourse is to contest and defeat the MP at the next primaries. The party is, of course, free to use the whip system in Parliament and other forms of lawful peer pressure, to get their MPs to toe the line. However, as long as the MP has not formally “crossed carpet” to the other side or declared himself an independent candidate after having been elected on the ticket of a particular party, he or she is free to vote in Parliament according to his or her own evaluation of the issue.
As for parties commanding their party MPs to boycott a vote in Parliament, I think that qualifies as an impermissible obstruction of the work of Parliament under Article 122 of the Constitution..
2. “Where Parliament is considering a bill to amend the Constitution, or where the voting is in relation to the election or removal of any person under this Constitution or under any other law, voting shall be in secret.” Article 104(4), Constitution of Ghana, 1992.
As the Standing Orders of Parliament are subject to the Constitution, and having regard to established canons and principles of interpretation, I am curious to know where the Speaker or the House derives the authority to determine that voting in Parliament, on a matter that falls outside the scope of Article 104(4), shall be by secret ballot.
It is indeed an affront to the very notion of representative democracy that the votes cast by Members of Parliament, the people’s elected representatives, on matters that are put to a vote in Parliament shall not be known by the people by the say-so of the House or the Speaker. This is a joke.
By: H Kwesi Prempeh, a Private Legal Practitioner
