Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin has stated that it was not part of his duties to determine where Members of Parliament should sit.
This was in response to a question he was asked at a press conference by a journalist over the disagreements over the sitting arrangements between the NPP MPs and NDC MPs.
He explained the sitting arrangements in the Chamber are guided by parliamentary conventions and the prevailing balance of power rather than by direct intervention from the Speaker.
He said the majority, by convention, sits at the right-hand side of the speaker while the minority sits at the left.
“It is not part of the duties of a speaker to decide where an MP should be in parliament. That determination in Ghana’s constitution doesn’t exist. In various parliaments, these things we are talking about; majority and minority don’t exist any longer. That is why in my ruling, I used the term old school, which is the British model; the government and opposition.
“…You can sit anywhere, but the numbers determine who is the majority and who is the minority. In our parliament, the practice is for those who constitute the majority to sit on the right side of the speaker and those who constitute the minority to sit on the left side of the speaker.
“That is because, after independence in 1957, we adopted the Westminster system, which is practised in the United Kingdom. But we changed that even to the extent that the arrangement on the floor of the house is in a horseshoe. So, it is not always the case that the people to the left side are all members of a minority, that is not the case now and there is good reason,” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana