Renowned economist Kwame Pianim has stated that Members of Parliament (MPs) should not receive their allowances if they choose to boycott their parliamentary duties as a form of protest against situations they are content with.
According to him, lawmakers have no justification for boycotting their responsibilities within the parliament.
“A parliamentarian has no business to boycott parliament. If they boycott parliament their allowances should be taken off,” he said.
“Parliament is young, there is a tendency now to put a lot of burden on the fledgling judiciary which is not fair,” he added.
In response to the Minority in Parliament’s decision to boycott parliamentary sessions as a means of protesting the trial of Assin North Member of Parliament James Gyakye Quayson, Mr Pianim voiced his strong disagreement.
The Minority justified their actions by claiming that they are reciprocating the government’s perceived “persecution” of Mr. Quayson.
However, Pianim maintains that MPs should not resort to such boycotts and instead should fulfill their parliamentary duties, regardless of their concerns or disagreements.
In a statement, the opposition lawmakers expressed their concerns regarding the trial of Hon. James Gyakye Quayson, the Assin North Member of Parliament.
The Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame, had requested that the trial proceed on a daily basis, even though there was an application for a stay of proceedings and a pending application before the Court of Appeal against the daily trial.
Despite these circumstances, the High Court ruled in favor of continuing the daily hearings. This decision by the court prompted the opposition lawmakers to react, with their statement highlighting their dissatisfaction with the perceived “persecution” and the subsequent boycott of parliamentary duties in protest.
“In essence, the rulings by the High Court put Hon. James Gyakye Quayson in the same position that he was placed in by the Supreme Court before the Assin North Constituency by-election
“If the Member of Parliament must appear in court every week day for trial, what time will he have to attend to Parliamentary business to represent the people of Assin North? We are therefore, at this point, including all options available to us to defend and protect our colleague. Hon. James Gyakye Quayson is the only person to have been elected twice within a Parliamentary term. He first won the 2020 Parliamentary election in Assin North Constituency, which was declared null and void by the Supreme Court after two and a half years. This triggered a by-election which he won again by an overwhelming 57.56% on 27th.”
On Tuesday, July 18, an Accra High Court rejected Mr. Quayson’s application for a stay of proceedings, which aimed to halt his criminal trial until the appeal process at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court was concluded.
Consequently, the court permitted the cross-examination of the prosecution’s first witness to proceed.
However, Abraham Amaliba, one of Mr. Quayson’s lawyers, raised doubts about the credibility of the prosecution’s first witness in the ongoing criminal trial of Mr. Quayson.
“He swore an oath that his statement was written in English [but] it turned out that when he was shown his own statement he spoke in Twi and it was recorded, that goes to the credibility of the witness, that goes to his mindset.
“So clearly, you notice that the prosecution witness was not helpful to the prosecution at all,” he told journalists after the court hearing on Tuesday, July 18.