The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2021 will be reintroduced to the Ninth Parliament for consideration and passage, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has said.
Describing the Eighth Parliament as history, he said all the businesses that were pending in the Eighth Parliament, including the bill, ended with that Parliament.
“And so we have a new Parliament and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced,” he said.
Misgivings
Giving a directive on the way forward for the anti-gay bill on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Bagbin expressedmisgivings about the challenges he had with the former President [Akufo-Addo], to whom the bill was transmitted to but refused to assent to it.
“They wrote to tell us that they would not assent and the only constitutional error they committed was they did not give us the reasons.”
“And they did not also transmit the bill back to us. They imprisoned it there, and so we did not get the bill back,” he said.
The Speaker gave the assurance that, it will be after debate on whether a new bill must be reintroduced or the House must hold on the previously passed bill and take steps to push the current President to assent it after reservations against the bill were corrected.
Ghanaians want bill passed
Mr Bagbin said as a private member’s bill, members of the House took it up on the resumption of Parliament and got through the whole process as detailed out in the Standing Orders.
He said, however, as the bill went through the process, the new government indicated that they wanted to take it as a public bill.
“I personally disagreed and made it known to His Excellency the President [Mahama], that this is an initiative of our people- the traditional leaders, the religious leaders and civil society leaders.
“Ghanaians wanted this bill passed through a private member’s bill and so be it,” he said.
The Speaker assured the House would process the bill as a private member’s bill. Expressing dismay at the failure of the bill’s sponsors to let the bill go through the laid down process in line with the Standing Orders, the Speaker said he would ensure that once the right rules were followed, the bill would be re-laid.
Smooth process assured
Concurring that lots of work had already been done, Mr Bagbin assured the bill would have smooth process in the House because “because both sides of the House now support it”.
“And His Excellency the President has given indication that he is ready and willing at any time that it is passed by the House to ascend to it,” he said.
He assured that he wanted the bill to be properly passed so that its implementation would be easier.
He said there were few things that the House’s attention had been drawn to which the House together work on so that “we pass the bill, it is a bill that is accepted by all and we will definitely obey the prescription of the bill.”
We’re ready to pass the bill
Earlier, the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, took on the Minority members for pretending to Ghanaians that they were interested in the bill’s passage and creating a false impression that NDC that worked to push the former President to assent the bill were no longer interested in the bill.
He said he thought that the fastest way out was to treat the bill as having been passed.
“But if you want us to start all over again, I want to assure you that this side of the House is ready to start all over again,” he said.
He told the House that President Mahama had assured of his readiness to assent the bill if the current Parliament passed the bill, unlike his predecessor who did everything to avoid giving assent to the bill, including threatening Parliament.
“I am shocked that a sitting President has threatened the Legislature and nothing has been done about it.
“A Secretary to the president writes a letter threatening the Clerk that he should ceases and desist every effort to present a bill duly passed by this House and nothing has happened to him,” he said.
Saying that the action of the President’s Secretary raised serious constitutional matters, he said “if the independence and autonomy and integrity of this Parliament is to be restored, action must be taken”.
“He should be referred to the Privileges Committee for writing and stopping this House form performing its constitutional duties,” Mr Ayariga said.
Source: graphic.com.gh
