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The Criminal Offences (Amendment), Bill, 2022, which seeks to do away with the death penalty, was approved by Ghana’s Parliament on Tuesday.
Ghana will now join the league of countries that have substituted the death sentence with life in prison once the President signs the Bill.
The purpose of the Private Members’ Bill is to alter the Criminal Offenses Act, 1960 (Act 29), to remove the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life in prison as well as to address other connected issues.
The main goal is to change the criminal justice system to meet the demands of a developing society and to align it with global best practices in criminal law.
Mr. Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is the sponsor of the Criminal Offenses (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
The execution of people found guilty of certain crimes by the state is known as the death penalty, sometimes known as “Capital Punishment”.
In Ghana, the death sentence is administered following a conviction for murder, a murder attempt, genocide, or acts of piracy and diamond and gold smuggling.
The criminal and other offenses (procedure) act of 1969 (Act30), section 304(3), specifies that the execution of the death penalty may be carried out either by hanging or by firing squad.
After putting the matter to a vote, Speaker of the House Alban Bagbin declared the Bill to have passed.
The imposition of the death sentence as a punishment has its roots in the retributive theory of punishment, according to Mr. Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs, in his report to the House on July 13 during the second reading of the Bill.
A person who commits murder must be punished in a way that is proportionate to the act of killing another person, according to the theory’s underlying tenet of “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
The Committee, he said, was of the opinion that the continued imposition of the death penalty in the Criminal Statutes makes a mockery of justice. Furthermore, the Committee believed that Ghana does not require the law, as evidenced by the nearly three decades that Ghana’s Presidents have found it unnecessary to sign execution warrants.
The sponsor of the Criminal Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, stated during debate on the bill that if it were to pass, Ghana would be able to better fulfill its obligations under international treaties and conventions.
Both Mr. Cletus Apul Avoka of the NDC, who represents Zebilla, and Mr. Habib Iddrisu of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who represents Tolon, spoke out against the death penalty during the Bill’s debate.
In his statement during the consideration stage, Mr. Avoka warned that the death penalty’s repeal might spark mob justice.
“Where is the evidence that when the death penalty is taken out of our books, people will not commit murder? In fact, we are having fewer heinous crimes because of the existence of the death penalty,” he said.
“Already, people do not have confidence in the judicial system, and if you now go around telling people that if you kill somebody, you will not die, then you are inviting Ghanaians to take the law into their hands and do instant justice.”
He rejected the idea that nations that had done away with the death sentence had lower crime rates.
In his speech to the parliamentary press corps after the bill’s passing, Mr. Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, the Deputy Majority Leader and NPP MP for Efutu, referred to the passage of the bill as a day of success for Ghanaians.
“Today’s Ghanaian Parliament has done the nation proud by endorsing what has emerged as a global human rights stance.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
