Parliament has oversight responsibility over government activities, in addition to law making.
There can be no government expenditure without parliamentary approval and there can be no loan agreement without Parliament okaying it.
Again, ministers, as well as Supreme Court judges, cannot take office without the approval of Parliament.
That is the power of Parliament, although greater Executive power is vested in the President.
It is to check the abuse of power of the three arms of government that we have the separation of powers.
The Executive carries out the day-to-day running of the country; Parliament makes laws and the Judiciary serves as a bulwark against the abuse of power by the Executive and the Legislature.
In recent times, a Fourth Estate of the Realm has emerged, with the media holding all the three arms of government to account to the people.
This is so because Article 1 of the Constitution states: ?The sovereignty of Ghana resides in the people of Ghana, in whose and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised in a manner and within the limits laid down in this Constitution.?
The present character of Parliament makes it difficult for the members to exercise that sovereign power on behalf of the people.
Our Parliament is the hybrid type that combines the Westminster and the Executive systems of government.
The Constitution mandates the President to appoint majority of ministers from Parliament, making the ministers judges in their own court.
The Daily Graphic is aware of the recommendations by the Constitution Review Commission, but the status quo remains as of now because the White Paper on the commission?s work is yet to be implemented.
We think that until this anomaly is corrected, Parliament will continue to play second fiddle to the Executive arm of government.
The other time Mr Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe, a retired jurist, spoke about the need for ?rebels? in Parliament who could, regardless of which side of the political divide they belonged to, defy their whips and vote according to their conscience.
Presently, many of the MPs who happen to have been in government since 1992 have always harboured the ambition to be ministers of state, for which reason they will never attempt to rock the boat and be seen as opposition in government.
The Daily Graphic thinks we must make a choice to implement either the Westminster type of government or the Executive system, either of which has clear guidelines as to how the elected representatives and their governments account to the people.
If it is the Executive system that we cherish, we should adopt it going forward, now that we have an opportunity to review the Constitution, so that our MPs will exercise their function in an efficient manner.
The independence of Parliament can help avoid the situation of some sector ministers failing to appear before the House, as happened this week during the approval of their respective budget estimates.
Daily Graphic Dec 14
