Prof Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a former Senior United Nations Governance Advisor, has warned about the potential of opening the floodgates to petitions from non-Members of Parliament being accepted by the Speaker.
According to him, the conduct could be dangerous to Parliament as an institution, as Minority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak has stated.
He instead recommended that the Speaker's decision on which petitions to accept be gatekept by encouraging interested parties to file petitions through Members of Parliament or any other avenue offered by the House.
"Because you see, if we are not careful, and like you rightly said, if you get a Speaker who is different in attitude and approach to things, and who is going to tolerate any kind of petition, then we can have a situation where anyone for any reason could throw in a petition just to disorganize the institution," he said on JoyNews' PM Express.
"I believe we should be wary of that." And I believe that if the information comes from a Member of Parliament, the person is on firm ground in terms of protocols and all."
"So why can't I go to my Parliamentarian if I have an issue that I want to bring to the Speaker's attention?" That is why they represent us, and my local MP should be able to stand in and make such a presentation on my behalf.
"I think that's a better, neater manner than allowing everybody with a problem to kind of toss it in; the parliament may be inundated with all kinds of petitions, and I don't think they can handle that." As a result, I believe there should be control, and the control mechanism should come from Members of Parliament," he continued.