Coalition Angry With Parliament

Prof Kwame Karikari is the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa


By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday February 17, 2010
The Ghana National Coalition on the Right to Information has accused Parliament of blatantly sidelining laid down provisions in the Constitution to conduct a first reading of the Right to Information Bill currently before the house.

The coalition says the Bill should have been publicized 14 clear days and made available to the Ghanaian population before it was laid before Parliament.

“How can a Bill that seeks to promote transparency and provide the legal guarantees for the constitutional right to information be introduced in Parliament in a cloud of non-transparency”, the coalition fumed.

Professor Kwame Karikari, Executive Director of Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and a leading member of the coalition said this at a news conference in Accra yesterday, to register the coalition’s displeasure at the way Parliament is handling the Bill.

He said: “The coalition has read with some concern the news of the first reading in Parliament on Friday February 5, 2010 of the Right to Information Bill, which has since been referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs.”

“Our concern may come as a surprise to the public, as we have been in the forefront of the demand that the final Bill be placed before Parliament without further delay but we must point out that due constitutional process has not been complied with and there has been no transparency in the process leading to the tabling of the Bill in Parliament”.

According to the Professor, Article 106 (2) (b) of the Constitution makes it mandatory for such a Bill to be published in the Gazette for a period of 14 days before it was introduced in Parliament but in this case it was only a notification that was given to the government publisher and not the full details as the rules demand.

He said, “The current Bill has inscribed on the back page the following notice: ‘Date of Gazette notification: January 19, 2010”, and added “but this is merely the notification of the Bill in the Gazette bulletin.”

He said when the coalition learnt about the notification of the Bill in the Gazette; the coalition went to the government publisher on several occasions to purchase a copy of the Bill but was informed that the Bill had not yet been printed.

“Even on the Friday when the Bill was introduced in Parliament, our enquiry in Parliament about getting a copy of the Bill proved negative – there was no copy”, he said.

“It is therefore shocking in the circumstance that the Bill was introduced in Parliament on February 5 where, after the first reading, it was referred to the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee. This is in contravention of Article 106 (2) (b). All the subsequent processes are and will therefore be unconstitutional, unless this grave error is rectified”.

“The coalition, with due respect, appeals to our honourable MPs to take a step back and permit the constitutionally mandated due process to be complied with before the Bill is introduced in Parliament”.

Mr. Akoto Ampaw a legal practitioner and another leading member of the coalition described Parliament’s action as a ‘fundamental misstep’ but added that the house alone should not take the responsibility for the ‘misstep’.

“It is not necessarily an error of Parliament. It is an error on the part of those who introduced the Bill”.

“Parliament is a creature of the constitution. We expect that they take the necessary steps to correct the error. If in the unlikely event that they are not persuaded the coalition will discuss the matter to see the next line of action”, he warned.