The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Bagbin, has defended his position on the controversial Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, insisting that Parliament retains the authority to revisit a bill even after it has been passed at the Third Reading stage.
His remarks come amid growing debate over the fate of the bill, popularly referred to as the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill, and concerns about the delay in transmitting it to the Presidency for presidential assent.
Addressing members of the Committee for the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Supreme Court of Ghana who paid a courtesy call on him on Thursday, Speaker Bagbin maintained that there is no constitutional time limit requiring Parliament to forward a passed bill to the President immediately after its passage.
According to him, Parliament’s legislative work does not end once a bill is read for the third time and passed on the floor of the House.
“I am sure my comments on the Bill passed recently have ruffled some feathers, but I still hold my view,” the Speaker stated.
He explained that Parliament has established post-passage procedures that allow lawmakers to identify and correct inconsistencies, errors, or procedural defects before a bill is transmitted to the President.
The Speaker rejected arguments by some legal practitioners who contend that Parliament becomes functus officio—having exhausted its authority—once a bill is passed.
“The recent debate where some lawyers came to me to say that by the Constitution, once a law is passed on the Floor, Parliament is functus officio, is not the law because we have what we call a post-passage process before you send it to the President for assent,” he said.
“That is why in the Constitution there is no time limit given to Parliament after passage to submit it to the President for assent.”
Speaker Bagbin disclosed that Parliament has mechanisms of self-regulation and self-correction, including the use of a Motion of Recession, which allows the House to rescind an earlier decision and reopen consideration of a bill.
“On many occasions, we usually identify some inconsistencies or some errors and then we go back to the House, what we refer to as the second consideration stage,” he explained.
“We use a process called recession—a motion of recession—to rescind the decision of having read the Bill the third time. In fact, we are very soon going to use it in connection with the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority Bill, which was passed in March.”
The Speaker’s comments are likely to reignite debate over his earlier call for a reconsideration of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill. While some parliamentary observers and governance experts have questioned the legal basis of such a move after the bill’s passage, Speaker Bagbin insists that Parliament retains the authority to revisit legislation before it is formally transmitted to the President.
The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill remains one of the most contentious pieces of legislation in Ghana’s recent parliamentary history, drawing strong support from religious and traditional groups while attracting criticism from human rights advocates and members of the international community.
The latest remarks by the Speaker add a new dimension to the ongoing legal and constitutional debate over Parliament’s powers after the passage of a bill and the procedures governing its transmission for presidential assent.
Watch video of Mr. Speaker here:
Source: Clement Akoloh/parliamentnews360.com
