Alexander Afenyo-Markin
The Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has called for greater independence for parliamentary legal offices across Africa, warning that legislatures cannot effectively scrutinise and restrain executive power when they depend on the Executive for legal advice.
He said the autonomy of parliamentary legal counsel was essential to the effective functioning of the separation of powers and the preservation of constitutional democracy.
Addressing the Eighth African Colloquium of Parliamentary Legal Counsel in Accra, he argued that a Parliament which relied on the Executive for legal opinions was a diminished institution, deprived of the full constitutional capacity to hold the government accountable.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin said parliamentary legal counsel must owe their allegiance to the Constitution and the institutional authority of Parliament, rather than the government of the day or the political party in power.
The Minority Leader noted that parliamentary legal counsel played a critical role in safeguarding institutional independence, particularly when contentious bills, emergency loan agreements and statutory instruments with implications for civil liberties were presented to the House.
“In this regard, the office of the legal counsel must be fully autonomous for the separation of powers to function effectively,” he said.
He explained that the Minority could not reasonably depend on lawyers serving the Executive to provide impartial interpretations of the law on matters requiring scrutiny of government decisions.
Mr. Afenyo-Markin warned that compromising the independence of parliamentary legal offices could reduce parliamentary oversight to political theatre.
The Minority Leader said parliamentary legal counsel operated at the centre of political contestation and often had to work under tight deadlines, partisan disagreements and pressure from parliamentary majorities and executives seeking legal flexibility or statutory advantage.
He therefore urged the lawyers to uphold professional ethics and integrity by refusing to draft provisions inconsistent with constitutional requirements.
He also called on them to provide candid and impartial advice to the Speaker, the Clerk to Parliament and committee chairpersons, even when their advice could challenge attempts to marginalise minority voices, restrict legitimate scrutiny or suppress dissent.
He stressed that the requirement for parliamentary legal offices to remain apolitical, impartial and nonpartisan should not be interpreted as passivity.
Rather, he said, nonpartisanship demanded an active commitment to procedural justice and the protection of constitutional rights.
According to him, the Constitution and the Standing Orders guaranteed minority members the right to ask questions, participate in deliberations, examine evidence and propose amendments.
“Parliamentary counsel have an important responsibility to provide guidance that ensures numerical majorities do not extinguish democratic rights,” he said.
The Minority Leader further called for a rigorous review of the Nairobi Principles as the African parliamentary legal community undertook a 15-year review of the framework.
He urged participants to use the exercise to assess the extent to which parliamentary legal offices across the continent were genuinely autonomous and identify instances where executive influence had weakened their independence.
He also challenged the colloquium to examine whether parliamentary counsel had been marginalised or denied the institutional authority needed to discharge their responsibilities effectively.
He said African citizens looked to their parliaments as institutional safeguards against authoritarianism, corruption, arbitrariness and the abuse of power.
By Ernest Kofi Adu
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