THE SPEAKER OF the 55th Legislature, Cllr. J. Fonati Koffa, in a letter of response to the “majority bloc”, transmitted through the office of the ECOWAS Parliament Speaker, has maintained that they do not accept as fait accompli what was done in the meeting of the “majority bloc”, as it did not conform to Constitutional order. He noted that Article 49 of the Constitution states, “The House of Representatives shall elect every six years a Speaker, who shall be the presiding officer of that body…”, and that at no time does the Constitution give concurrent jurisdiction to a Deputy Speaker to preside; therefore, it is un-Constitutional for a Deputy Speaker to preside when the Speaker is present and available. “To allow that would mean that any group of lawmakers, who happen to be in excess of 37, could summon the Deputy Speaker on any matter and make a decision, thus creating a semblance of dual camera House of Representatives. This is repugnant to our Constitutional scheme,” he warned. Speaker Koffa’s observation seems to suggest that the impasse at the House of Representatives is far from over.
THE SPEAKER EMPHASIZED that the Supreme Court’s response does not in any way recognize legitimacy of the “majority bloc”. “The question before the court was a writ to prohibit the illegal removal of the Speaker, in which the Justice in Chamber declined to issue after conference following representation of the ‘majority bloc’, who asserted that they were not involved in the removal of the Speaker but rather submitting complaint against the Speaker. Under our judicial canons, it is the full bench of the Supreme Court which rules on Constitutional matters, and the Justice in Chamber could not, and did not, give Constitutional recognition to the ‘majority bloc’, which would have been inconsistent with a long line of cases in this regard,” the Speaker observed.
MEANWHILE, AS THE impasse at the House of Representatives continues to drag on, the National Civil Society Council of Liberia (NCSCL) has threatened an unspecified mass citizens action if members of that august body fail to settle their dispute, and also if President Joseph Boakai does not play a leadership role to intervene into the situation.
PREDICATED UPON THIS, the NCSCL is calling on members of the House of Representatives to come together and bring an immediate end to the current impasse, which has since created instability and insecurity to the state and the delay in the budget submission by the Executive.
FAILURE TO ADHERE to this call within two weeks’ time the NCSCL vowed that the Council will embark on an unspecified mass citizens action, which would bring to two the number of citizens actions to end the impasse at the Capitol. The first citizens action was the March on the Capitol, staged by the Campaigners for Change two weeks ago.
