Your case on purported 2022 Budget approval moot-Supreme Court
The Apex court thus advised counsel to acquaint himself with the judgment of the case supra in order to come to terms with its reasoning and stance on the matter.
The Supreme Court has described a suit by a Ghanaian citizen and private legal practitioner, Richard Dela Sky challenging the subsequent approval of the 2022 Budget by a majority-only House presided by the First Deputy Speaker as moot.
Presided over by Justice Jones Dotse, the Supreme Court panel declined to make a ruling relative to the quorum in parliament noting that it had already made such a determination in the case of Justice Abdulai vs Attorney General delivered on March 9, 2022.
The Apex court thus advised counsel to acquaint himself with the judgment of the case supra in order to come to terms with its reasoning and stance on the matter.
After the rejection, the Majority side, who staged a walkout on the day of rejection, called on Ghanaians to disregard the purported rejection of the Budget by the Minority side.
Therefore on November 30, 2021, Parliament consisting of 138 Majority only members, presided over by the 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei-Wusu, reversed the November 26 rejection and approved the 2022 Budget statement of the Government.
Richard Dela Sky filed the suit to challenge the decision by the First Deputy Speaker, Joe-Osei-Wusu to take part in the November 30, 2021 vote that led to the November 26 rejection and approval of the 2022 Budget.
He was therefore seeking inter alia a declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Articles 95(1), 96(1), and 104(1), any time a Deputy Speaker or any other person presides over Parliament in the absence of the Speaker, he/she forfeits the right to be counted as a part of the MPs present for the determination of a matter.
Additionally, he sought an order of the court to set aside the decision of 138 Majority only side of the House including the presiding 1st Deputy Speaker to approve the 2022 budget in the speaker’s absence.
The Supreme Court however insisted that their decision in the Justice Abdulai case mentioned supra satisfies all the issues in the present case thus described same as moot.
This is one of two cases by the private legal practitioner at the Apex Court.
He is also per a pending suit, seeking among others “an order setting aside the purported vote by 137 Members of Parliament of Ghana out of the total number of 275 Members of Parliament of Ghana on 26th November 2021, which vote purported to reject the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana, for violating Article 104(1) of the Constitution 1992 of the Republic of Ghana”.
