National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Odododiodoo, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has declared that the minority caucus will not reconvene in Parliament until after the next elections.
This decision comes after the majority caucus moved to ask for a recall of Parliament after Speaker Alban Bagbin’s declaration of four seats as vacant was recently overturned by the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, the Supreme Court upheld Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin’s challenge and overturned Speaker Bagbin’s ruling.
Bagbin’s interpretation of Article 97(1)(g) of the Ghanaian Constitution as the basis for declaring the seats vacant was at the heart of the disagreement. By avoiding judicial review and preventing by-elections in the impacted constituencies, Afenyo-Markin contended that the Speaker had overreached his jurisdiction.
The Speaker argued that legislative decisions are outside the judiciary’s purview and challenged the Supreme Court’s earlier interim injunction to stop the Speaker’s decision. But in the end, the court rejected the Speaker’s assertion.
Vanderpuye stressed in an interview with Channel One TV that the NPP caucus could not defend what he described as “unnecessary spending” of public funds.
He stated that the NDC MPs will focus on election preparations and return to parliamentary work only after the December elections.
“They should not waste the taxpayers’ money by asking us to come to Parliament in the next three weeks. We are not coming. We are concerned about elections, and we shall only come to Parliament after the elections. That should be at the back of their minds,” he said in a report by citinewsroom.com.
He emphasised, “We want them to understand one fact that as far as we are concerned, issues about minority or majority are determined by the numbers in the house, so when we resume, the numbers will tell whether we are the majority, or they are the majority. This is not about the Supreme Court.
“…It is not for the NPP or the Supreme Court to define for us who are majority or minority in Ghana’s Parliament. We have our own procedures for determining who is a majority or who is a minority. When they were declared majority by Speaker Bagbin, did they go to the Supreme Court to seek that declaration?”
