President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated his excitement with the involvement of some popular figures in the debate around the anti-LGBTQ+ Bill currently before Parliament.
President Akufo-Addo said in a radio interview on October 21, that he has been pleasantly surprised by the decision of the ‘renowned’ persons to make their voices heard with respect to the passage or otherwise of the bill.
In the interview which aired on Accra-based Peace FM, President Akufo-Addo said that the bill christened ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021’ is a test case for Ghana’s democracy.
Whiles calling for tolerance on the matter, he disclosed that due process should be followed in considering it in the lawmaking chamber.
He stated that his government is carefully following the discussions and waiting for some finality on the issue.
“I was impressed by the intervention of very renowned and well-positioned people within the Civil Society sectors of the country, coming forward to express their view on the matter.
“I think that it will be a credit to Ghanaian democracy if this matter is handled in a correct manner. I believe that reference has been made by the bill to the constitutional and legal committee and that is the committee to look at issues of rights, constitutionality, and legislation in our parliament.
“I hear over 130 memoranda have been submitted to them. I am anticipating that they will all be looked at closely before they [Parliament] can come to some consensus. The chairman of the committee has spoken about what his preoccupation is, which I think are very legitimate to be satisfied with the constitutionality and legality. All these are part of the mix, and I am hoping that the process will be conducted in an acceptable manner,” he said.
Among the prominent persons who have voiced out against the bill is lawyer Akoto Ampaw who represented President Akufo-Addo in the 2020 election petition.
Ampaw is the lead advocate for a coalition of prominent lawyers and academicians who have kicked against the bill.
They premise their argument on the notion that the bill is unconstitutional as it is undemocratic and is promoting hate against homosexuals in the country and trampling on the right of LGBTQ+ persons.
Background
Parliament is expected to discuss a Private Member’s bill submitted by some eight MPs. The 38-page bill before parliament, among other things, stipulates that, people of the same sex who engage in sexual intercourse are “liable on summary conviction, to a fine of not less than seven hundred and fifty penalty units and not more than five thousand penalty units, or to a term of imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than five years or both.”
The Bill targets persons who “hold out as a lesbian, a gay, a transgender, a transsexual, a queer, a pansexual, an ally, a non-binary or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female.”
The Bill also targets promoters and advocates of LGBTQ+ rights including “a person who, by use of media, technological platform, technological account or any other means, produces, procures, markets, broadcasts, disseminates, publishes or distributes a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, or a person uses an electronic device, the Internet service, a film, or any other device capable of electronic storage or transmission to produce, procure, market, broadcast, disseminate, publishes or distribute a material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill” as well as a person who “promotes, supports sympathy for or a change of public opinion towards an act prohibited under the Bill.”
As part of its provisions, the Bill outlines that a flouter can be sentenced to a jail term of not less than six years or not more than ten years imprisonment. At the back of the public support the Bill has received, a group of academicians and other professionals have expressed their opposition to the bill.
According to the group of 18, the bill, ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values’, when passed into law, would erode a raft of fundamental human rights, as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.
Members of the group opposing the anti-gay bill include Mr Akoto Ampaw; author, scholar and former Director of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Prof. Emerita Takyiwaa Manuh; a communications and media expert, Prof. Kwame Karikari; the Dean of the University of Ghana (Legon) School of Law, Prof. Raymond Atuguba, and the Dean of the University of Ghana School of Information and Communication Studies, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo.
The Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Professor Dzodzi Tsikata; the Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, and a former Executive Director of CDD-Ghana, Prof. Kofi Gyimah-Boadi, are also members of the group. Others are Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, Dr Yao Graham, Mr Kwasi Adu Amankwah, Dr Kojo Asante, Mr Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah, Mr Akunu Dake, Mr Tetteh Hormeku-Ajie, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, Dr Joseph Asunka and Nana Ama Agyemang Asante.