It has emerged that the Member of Parliament-elect for Assin North Constituency in the Centre Region who after winning the seat for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is being chased by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) for having due citizenship has, after all, had his Canadian citizenship renounced.
Awake News has sighted a copy of Mr. James Gyake Quayson’s renunciation certificate issued to him on November 26, 2020. According to sources, he applied for the renunciation of his Canadian citizenship in December 19 and it was granted in November 2020/
According to Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, it is illegal for elected public office holders dua citizenship.
Art. 94 (2) (a) of the 1992 Constitution states: “A person shall not be qualified to be a member of parliament if he (a) owes allegiance to any other country other than Ghana.”
If readers can recall, few days after Mr. James Gyake Quayson was declared winner of the December 7 polls, the NPP in the constituency had alleged that he holds dual citizenship. Through the NPP’s lawyers, Marfo & Associates a search request was made to The Comptroller of the Ghana Immigration Services which the result was that Mr. Quayson had both Ghanaians and Canadian passports.
Read the letter below:
It was however immerged that Mr. Quayson had his Candadian citizenship denounced on November 26, 2020. In an article published earlier on AwakeNewsRoom.com, Lawyer Larbi argued that the petition filed against the MP-elect by the NPP ought to be dismissed.
According to the Lawyer, “A reading of the constitution and the electoral laws does not in any way disqualify the MP-elect. This is what the law says: Art. 94 (2) (a) of the 1992 Constitution states:
“A person shall not be qualified to be a member of parliament if he (a) owes allegiance to any other country other than Ghana.”
This provision of the constitution is repeated verbatim in the necessary electoral law.
In my humble opinion, the law on who can be an MP among other things is not to owe allegiance to any other country except Ghana.
So the question is at what stage does this law become applicable? Is it at the time of filing of the nomination to stand for the elections or at the time the person is to be sworn in as an mp after the elections?”
For him “the law is very clear and to make it easy for all of us who an mp is has to be defined.”
Lawyer Larbi explained as:
“Who is an MP? An MP in my humble opinion is a person sworn into office as an MP after having taken the oath as an MP. An MP-elect is not an MP. The constitution and the electoral laws do not in any way state that before you stand to be elected you shouldn’t owe any allegiance to any other country except Ghana. See paragraph 11 onwards of the petition. What it actually says is that “a person doesn’t qualify as an mp”. It doesn’t say”qualify as mp elect”. So what it means is that you can only qualify after the elections and you have been duly elected. And the emphasis is to qualify as an mp.
What we have to remember is that until the person is sworn in as an mp he’s not an mp even though already elected.
So what I believe the law says is that If at the time the person is sworn in as an mp he owes allegiance to any other country then, of course, he doesn’t qualify.”
This is a copy of Mr. Quayson’s certificate:
By: Efo Korsi Senyo / awakenewsroom.com