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Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., has opposed the Supreme Court verdict saying a "Deputy Speaker is entitled to be counted as a Member of Parliament for quorum" and can "vote and take part in the decision of Parliament".

The Supreme Court, by a seven member panel, made this decision unanimously on Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

But to the seasoned Journalist, the verdict is an erosion of the Speaker's neutrality in presiding over parliamentary proceedings.

He argued that as soon as the Deputy Speaker sits in the Speaker's seat, he assumes the Speaker's role, so wondered why they should have a right to vote.

"Deputy Speakers are Deputy Speakers. Deputy Speakers are not Speakers. That's a fact but when Deputy Speakers move and sit in that chair with the gavel, they exercise the powers of Speakers. They do not exercise the powers of Speakers because they have the same salary with the Speaker. They exercise the powers of Speaker clearly because in that position they are performing functions of the Speaker and in that position as they perform the functions of Speaker, they are expected to rise above the partisanship in the House."

"How do they rise above the partisanship in the House when they are voting and debating and so on? . . . if the drafters of the constitution intended the position of Speaker to be a neutral arbiter, how can those act in stead of the Speaker not be expected to act as neutral arbiters?'', he asked.

"All of us, normal right-thinking people, do we expect persons presiding over parliamentary affairs to be neutral or we don't? Do we expect a certain level of neutrality or we don't? Now, if we expect a certain level of neutrality and independence for persons presiding over parliamentary affairs, how do you guarantee that neutrality?

''If the person presiding over the affairs in Parliament is involved in the debate and can cast a vote in favor of a side and so on, how then can you establish the Speaker's impartiality and neutrality?",  he further queried.

To Mr. Pratt, the purpose of the verdict is just to allow the "so-called majority to carry the day even as we have 137/137. That's the effect. That is the effect; no other effect!"