A private legal practitioner, Kweku Paintsil, has criticised the ongoing court case regarding vacant seats in Parliament, stating that there has been inconsistency since the beginning of the case.
According to him, the entire case as an attempt to push a particular agenda.
He was speaking on Thursday, October 31, 2024, after the Supreme Court disagreed with the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, on his request to overturn the Court’s earlier ruling that suspended his declaration of four parliamentary seats as vacant.
“Personally, I consider everything leading up to yesterday as inconsistent,” he said.
He explained, “We have a Speaker who received an order that he himself failed to agree with, but on the day he sat in Parliament and made a ruling, he acknowledged this order. Then, in the next moment, he sent the order back to the Court on the basis that it was not properly served on him. Yet, he then went ahead and filed an application in the Supreme Court regarding the very order he claims was not properly served on him. This is inconsistency and poses an agenda, which is that somehow Parliament must be hung.”
On Wednesday, October 30, 2024, after a day-long hearing of the Speaker’s application, the Supreme Court denied his request.
This followed an initial suit filed by Effutu MP Alexander Afenyo-Markin, challenging the Speaker’s declaration of four parliamentary seats as vacant.
The four controversial seats are held by: Peter Yaw Kwakye Ackah of the NDC from Amenfi Central constituency in the Western Region; Andrew Amoakoh Asiamah of Fomena in the Ashanti Region; Kojo Asante, NPP MP for Suhum in the Eastern Region; and Cynthia Morrison of the NPP from Agona West constituency.
