Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has disclosed that a Justice of the Supreme Court has explained why he is the second most powerful person in Ghana only behind the President of the Republic.
According to him, the unnamed Justice explained to a gathering that included Members of Parliament that to the extent that the governance structure comprised the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary in that order, their respective leaders must be ranked the same.
“When you start from His Excellency the President, you have to go to the Vice before you come to the Speaker and then you go to the Chief Justice,” he said of the known hierarchy.
Then continued: “But we have three arms of government… my colleagues in the Supreme Court told me that actually, you are not number three, you are number two. All those who were present at that meeting were convinced when the Supreme Court judge made the submission and justified it.
“It is not me saying it. I have said I am number three but they said I am number two. The three arms of government – the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary – are equal arms of government, and must be treated as such.
He reiterated a point about how underresourced Parliament and the Judiciary have been under the Fourth Republic, calling for greater engagement to ensure that their allocations are upped.
“I will insist and I expect to get the support of members, it is not this government right from 1993, Parliament, the Judiciary have never gotten 1% of the total revenue of the country, not even 1%.
“So I started the discussion from the highest, His Excellency the President and he was shocked when he saw the data, and my colleagues the Majority and Minority leaders are aware of this and we discussed how to transit from below 1% to about 5% within four years,” he added.
Source: Ghanaweb
