Legal Practitioner Sam Okudzeto says it is ridiculous to ask the Supreme Court to order the Minority in Parliament to actively participate in all Parliamentary deliberations. He says any such request of the Supreme Court could only serve to make mockery of the highest court of the land. The Court, according to him, does not have unlimited powers to order Members of Parliament to attend to Parliamentary business as suggested by three petitioners seeking the Supreme Court’s declaration that New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs’ boycott of select government business is unconstitutional. Minority MPs declined to participate in the vetting of President John Mahama’s ministerial nominees on the grounds that they are challenging the president’s election at the Supreme Court. They also staged a walkout when he went to the House of Parliament to deliver his first State of the Nation Address. The three petitioners say the seats of the Minority MPs must be declared vacant because the sitting MPs had, by embarking on the boycott, violated the Constitution, which mandates them to attend to all parliamentary business. Responding to these arguments, Mr. Okudzeto said, “there is too much sensationalism in this country and I think people just want to be in the news.” He said that Parliament itself has spelled out in its Standing Orders rules governing the conduct of MPs. If any member violates any rule relating to attendance, he explained, the House could apply the relevant sanctions. Attendance in Parliament “is not a matter for the Courts; that is a matter for Parliament to regulate itself,” he stated. “We should appreciate of course also that there are three separate [arms of government] established under the Constitution; there is the Executive, there is Parliament and there are also the courts; one does not have overwhelming authority [such that] the courts are going to be ordering Members of Parliament to attend meetings of Parliament,” he added. The senior legal practitioner said it is frequently important to recognize that just as ordinary citizens have the right to protest and get police protection when they are protesting, the NPP MPs are also entitled to protest if they reasonably believe their grievances before the Supreme Court to be genuine. Even more fundamentally, he asserted, the MPs are not boycotting all parliamentary sessions even though some people are trying to create this impression. “People are claiming that the president was not elected according to law…Now if they want to boycott the president…that is their own business. I don’t see any power of any court giving an order for a member to attend Parliament,” he stressed. Mr. Okudzeto is convinced that the petition seeking to compel the Minority to attend all Parliamentary sessions is nothing more than a publicity stunt.