The embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives, Cllr. J. Fonati Koffa, has urged members of the “majority bloc” of the House to return to the 6-point ECOWAS negotiating proposal as the best way forward to end the impasse at the House and return to status quo ante for the benefit of the Liberian people.
Speaker Koffa said he believes that the 6-point proposal developed by the office of the ECOWAS Parliament Speaker, Hadja Memounatou Ibrahima, is the best path to the resolution of the matter up Capitol Hill, and that the leadership of the House is committed to its full implementation.
He emphasized that sessions of the Legislature be conducted in the main chambers as was designated and has been used since the inception of the 54th Legislature, which may be changed by plenary at any time and any place within the Capitol. However, he said, such change must be initiated in the current main chambers located in the new House Annex of the Capitol Building.
In a letter of response to the “majority bloc”, transmitted through the office of the ECOWAS Parliament Speaker, Speaker Koffa 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.
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.
However, it appears like the ECOWAS mediation team has fallen short of resolving the matter at the House of Representatives, as both parties are still standing their grounds.
