The Supreme Court of Ghana has provided a comprehensive explanation of its ruling to uphold the suit filed by Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin.
In a 5-2 decision delivered on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, a seven-member panel, led by Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, reversed the decision of Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin to declare four parliamentary seats vacant.
In its judgment, the court highlighted that an MP’s seat is considered vacated if the member changes parties within Parliament and continues to serve under the new party affiliation.
However, two of the justices dissented. Justice Lovelace-Johnson, one of the dissenting judges, argued that the High Court, rather than the Supreme Court, has exclusive jurisdiction in matters related to the vacation of parliamentary seats.
“It is my opinion that in relation to a matter relating to the vacation or otherwise of a parliamentary seat, a plaintiff has no choice in the matter. He has to go to the High Court. The jurisdiction of the High Court is exclusive.
“I am satisfied that the high court being the proper forum for this matter but the plaintiff having his writ in the Supreme Court, the jurisdiction of this court has not been properly invoked. I, therefore, see no need to go into the merits or otherwise of the other issues raised in the memoranda of issues. The action is accordingly dismissed,” she stated.
Justice Tanko Amadu, in his dissent, also expressed strong reservations, calling the majority’s decision an “aberration” to established judicial practices.
“I do not hasten to proclaim that I have apprehended with despair the majority’s conclusion in this suit, but I state, with utmost deference to the Hon. Chief Justice and the rest of my brethren in the majority that, not only do I fundamentally disagree with their conclusion, I, with all due respect, also find the decision an aberration to the established and accepted a judicial position of this court which with profound respect.
“I hope in no distant future the resultant usurpation of the constitutional prerogative of the High Court incidental to the majority decision will be reversed,” the court held.
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