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Problems of debating urgent bills in Parliament

The lawmaking process can be excruciatingly slow. If you do not believe me, take some time and conduct a little research into the life span of some of the bills currently pending before Parliament or that are being taken through stakeholder consultations by ministries, departments and agencies.

The Plant Breeders Rights Protection Bill, I am reliably informed, has been in the works for the past seven years. Several reasons may account for the delay in passing bills.

These include lack of political will or interest by the ruling government, interest-group resistance to passage, lack of consensus within Parliament, cumbersome parliamentary procedures and inertia on the part of Parliament itself.

Government business sometimes requires the urgent passage of bills into law in order to provide the requisite legal backing to government action.

In some cases, such as the imposition of taxes, the Constitution actually makes it mandatory that no tax can be imposed without a law passed by Parliament. Witness the following: “No taxation shall be imposed otherwise than by or under the authority of an Act of Parliament.” This is the peremptory language of Article 174 clause (1) of the Constitution.

Tax bills

This means that tax bills must be passed into law before taxes can be imposed and collected to support a government’s budget. In consequence, almost every tax bill is an urgent bill, particularly those required to be passed immediately following the passage of the Appropriations Bill. Without the passage of tax bills, the government cannot tax and spend.

So, why is all this important? My simple answer is that this has become important because, in practice, Parliament has failed to adhere religiously to the language of Article 106, clause 13 in its treatment of urgent bills.

A recent example is the treatment of five fiscal bills presented to Parliament by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. These bills were the Communication Services (Amendment) Tax Bill, the Special Import Levy Bill, the Customs and Exercise (Duties and Other Taxes) Bill, National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy Bill and the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill.

As it is clear from the short title of the bills, they all relate to taxation and were referred to the Finance Committee of Parliament, which determined in its report that the bills were urgent.

Despite this determination, the bills were debated, amended and revised. I took the view that this had serious practical consequences for the conduct of government business. It slows down government business and in the particular context of fiscal bills; the state loses revenue the more these bills delay. I had the opportunity when sitting was adjourned to discuss my views with some of my more senior and respected colleagues, including the former Majority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin; the Minority Leader, Mr Kyei Mensa-Bonsu and the Second Deputy Speaker, Mr Joe Ghartey. They all disagreed with my position on this matter. They made a number of valid arguments, most of which I am unable to summarise accurately here.

Common theme

However, a common theme that ran through their arguments was that the drafters of the Constitution could not have contemplated the passage of bills without debate.

Well, the drafters, unfortunately, did contemplate just that when they provided in clause 13 of Article 106 that the preceding clauses “shall not apply” when a committee appointed for that purpose has determined that a bill is urgent.

Listening to my senior colleagues, it appeared to me that the notion that a bill may be passed into law without debate could not square with the concept of parliamentary control of the lawmaking process in a democracy.

But, with all due respect to these senior colleagues, it is not true that in parliamentary practice, bills cannot be passed without debate. When I arrived in Parliament last December, as a rookie lawmaker, I was introduced to a book titled Parliamentary Practice by Eskine May, by no other person than Mr Alban Bagbin. Commenting on what in British parliamentary practice is known as Consolidated Fund Bills, the author opines at page 551 as follows:

“Consolidation Bills…..are not debated at all, at either a second or third reading, the question being put forthwith at each stage. Although consideration of such bills in committee is still possible, a motion by a minister, that the bill be not committed, may be moved without notice after second reading and may be decided at any hour. Such bills, therefore, may, and frequently do, proceed through all stages without debate.”

The italicised words indicate quite clearly that, as a matter of practice, a parliament may pass bills into law without debate. This does not mean loss of parliamentary control of the lawmaking process; indeed, it is an inherent exercise of the lawmaking power of parliament.

Rethink practice

I wish to invite parliament to rethink the practice of conducting full debate of bills determined as urgent by its own committees. The practice defeats the underlying constitutional rationale for vesting that power in committees and providing a mechanism for the speedy enactment of legislation to aid the expeditious execution of urgent government business.

By Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine
The writer is Deputy Attorney General and lecturer, International Trade and Investment Law and lecturer of the Law Faculty, University of Ghana.



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