Parliament Speaker Alban Bagbin has provided a firm clarification on the status of the much-debated bill, following days of confusion and disagreement among lawmakers over whether it required reintroduction in the Ninth Parliament.
Addressing the House during a parliamentary session today, the Speaker stated that the bill cannot simply continue from where the previous Parliament left off.
“The eighth Parliament is history. So are all the businesses that were pending in the eighth Parliament.
“They all ended with the eighth Parliament and so we have a new Parliament — the ninth Parliament, and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced,” he said.
His remarks appear in direct response to the position of the Majority Leader, who had argued last week that the bill had already been passed by the previous House and therefore did not need to go through the process again.
But Bagbin strongly refuted that interpretation, grounding his stance in parliamentary procedure.
He further addressed the issue of presidential assent, revealing that communication from the presidency failed to meet constitutional requirements.
“They wrote to tell us that they would not assent to it. The only constitutional error they committed was that they didn’t give us reasons why they would not assent to it, and they did not transmit the bill back to us. They imprisoned it there,” he stated.
Bagbin also highlighted the origins of the legislation, recounting its journey through the House and reiterating his disagreement with attempts to reclassify it.
“As you would recall, that’s a private member’s bill, and so members of this House took it up. It went through the whole process as detailed in our Standing Orders. But as it went through the process, the new government indicated that they wanted to take it as a public bill.
“I personally disagreed and made it known to His Excellency the President that this was an initiative of our people, the traditional leaders, the religious leaders, civil society leaders and so we would process it as a private member’s bill.
“Our rules have given what the speaker is expected to do, which I will do before it can be laid in the House,” Bagbin said.
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