Despite President Akufo-Addo signaling that he won’t sign private members’ bills into law, work on the controversial Anti-LGBTQ bill will proceed.
The President has recently refused to sign certain private members’ bills, including one sponsored by Madina MP Francis-Xavier Sosu seeking to abolish the death penalty and proscribe accusations of witchcraft.
[embedded content]The President’s rationale behind his decision is that the bill would impose a charge on the Consolidated Fund, emphasizing that such proposals should originate from the Executive.
In his letter, the President hinted that his office would not entertain any private members’ bills imposing a charge on the consolidated fund.
Because the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill was triggered by a private member, its fate remains in the balance.
Last week, Parliament could not agree on the appropriate punishment for LGBTQ+ persons engaging in unnatural carnal knowledge with each other.
The Bill criminalizes sex between persons of the same sex, between a man or woman and an animal or object, proposing a punishment of between 3 and 5 years.
However, the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee recommended a jail term of up to 3 years without suggesting a minimum sentence.
The Chairman of the Committee explained the rationale behind the proposal on Tuesday, December 12, 2023.
“Most of the religious bodies were supporting the fact that they would give people who are prepared to go through reforms, the opportunity to go through. If we make a strict law that if you are found guilty, or you practice this, you don’t have an option. Mr. Speaker, we don’t have a community service that would have been more severe than giving the person a custodial sentence, because the society will look down upon you.
“But to caution you or to give you deserve imprisonment or imprisonment, if we leave it to the discretion of the judge, they are also members of this society, they are learned, and depending on the circumstances, that’s why I am comfortable if we give the upper limit without saying that the person must be imprisoned as a minimum requirement.”
A sponsor of the bill, Sam George said that advice on the remits of the penalty units to be slapped against culprits would be crucial in determining the gravity of the corresponding sanction.
“We should then get advice on what the minimum penalty or 750 units is concurrent with, is it three months or six months? So we have a lower limit also for custodial sentence,” he said on the floor.
But the Speaker interjected saying that there was already a law on equivalence on penalty units and therefore “that will apply.”
After the deliberations, the Speaker deferred the questions to the parliamentary drafters to draft the detailed form of the discussions to better reflect the intentions of various legislators.
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