Alban Bagbin: We need to preserve our democracy

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has said that Ghana needs to protect, preserve, deepen and consolidate an entrenched democratic culture.

He said that even though Ghanak serves as an icon to most countries in Africa, more can be done to promote constitutional democracy.

“It is not only the parliamentary system and the executive system, we immersed it into our traditional system or notion of governance that is how we operate. So, admittedly many of us who are not active political actors find it difficult,” Bagbin said at the Speaker of Parliament’s Seminal Lecture Series under the theme: “Parliament, its business and the Supreme Court in perspective.”

Also speaking at the programme, a law lecturer at the University of Ghana and board member of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Clara Kasser-Tee said the three organs of government should desist from encroaching each other’s terrain.

“The Supreme Court in democracies similar to ours have attempted and are still attempting methods to manage well this fine balance.

“I think our Supreme Court ought to manage this balance in the light of the specific provisions of our constitution, the nature of this jurisdiction under our constitution and in the light of the principles of democracy so that we could further deepen our democracy,” Kasser-Tee said.

This, she explained, is the only way Ghana’s democracy can be deepened.

“I also hope that my proposal will help ignite debate from all of us as citizens for the consideration of the Supreme Court on the way forward for us”.

source:Asaase Radio 99.5