Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament, has reiterated that he is not an appointee of President John Dramani Mahama.
Speaker Bagbin highlighted that he is not bound to accept directives or instructions from any President.
According to Bagbin, he was elected by an electoral college and is not an appointee of President John Dramani Mahama.
Speaking during a courtesy call by the Supreme Court 150th Anniversary Planning Committee on Thursday, June 11, Alban Bagbin stated, “I am elected by an electoral college. But in the minds of the populace, I mean, they still refer to me as appointed, and I have to keep on correcting them that I’m not the president’s appointee. No, I am not. The Speaker is not appointed by the President.
He added: “The President will have a say, but that say doesn’t mean that that will be the intention of the House, and we’ve seen it in this House, at least in my case in 2021. The Presidency’s say did not carry the day, so it means that really the Speaker is an appointee of the members of the House, and so I owe my loyalty and allegiance to them and to the nation.
I don’t have to listen to what His Excellency and the rest will do. They don’t do it. Yes, I can listen to them because it’s part of the conversation, but I am not bound by what they say, and I think that I have tried in that respect. It’s very easy.”
Speaker Bagbin further called for urgent reforms to the process of appointing Supreme Court judges,
He argued that the judiciary should have greater control over its own leadership.
“The appointments need urgent attention. We don’t want to allow other people to appoint who should be a judge or who should be the head of judges. They should have the opportunity to do it themselves. That profession should have the opportunity to do it themselves. In Parliament, the Speaker, MPs are appointed? No,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alban Bagbin has said the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, popularly known as the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill, can be reconsidered even after it has been passed.
Speaker Bagbin disclosed that Parliament has the option to move a motion to rescind its earlier decision on the Bill.
He further dismissed claims that Parliament is in a stalemate over the Bill.
Bagbin disclosed, “The recent debate where some lawyers came out strongly to say that by the Constitution, once a law is passed on the floor, Parliament is functus officio. It’s not the law. Because we have what we call a passage process before you send it to the President for assent”.
He added, “And that process gives the opportunity for Parliament to reflect on what it has passed. And that is why, in the Constitution, there is no time limit given to Parliament after passage to submit to the President for assent. And on many occasions, we usually identify some inconsistencies or errors.
And then we go back to the House, where they refer to us as the second reconsideration stage. We use the process for recession, a motion of recession to rescind the decision of having read the bill a third time. And then use that to do it.
So it’s really not the law that once the Speaker says the bill is read a third time and passed, Parliament is functus officio.”
“In fact, we are very soon going to use it in connection with the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority Bill, which was passed in March,” he disclosed.
“All the bills are to be signed by the Clerk… After him, they have to be sent to me, and I have to go through it and make sure that everything is in order before I sign it and then direct that it be presented to the President for assent,” he said.
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