[2012]DLSC2679 • May 22, 2012 • Supreme Court •
NANA KWARTENG PANIN AKOSA II AND OTHERS vs. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
The Minister for Local Government laid before Parliament an instrument (LI 1853) establishing the Atwima Kwanwoma District Assembly with its principal offices at Twedie. After the statutory 21 sitting days, the instrument came into force but with a substitution changing the principal office location from Twedie to Foase. The plaintiffs challenged this substitution as unconstitutional and invalid under Article 117 of the 1992 Constitution.
read moreGBADEGBE JSC: The question for our decision in this case turns on the law making power of Parliament in relation to the bringing into being of subsidiary legislation under article 11(7) of the 1992 Constitution by which it is provided thus: “Any Order, Rule or Regulation made by a person or authority under a power conferred by this Constitution or any other law shall- (a) be laid before Parliament; (b) be published in the Gazette on the day it is laid before Parliament; and (c) come into force at the expiration of twenty-one sitting days after being so laid unless Parliament, before the expiration of twenty-one days, annuls the Order, Rule or Regulation by the votes of not less than two-thirds of all the members of Parliament.” The scope of the power conferred on Parliament under article 11 (7) of the Constitution has been the subject of previous determinations of this court in the unreported cases of Stephen Nii Bortey Okane v The Attorney General, numbered as J1/2/2011 dat...