The Criminal Offences Amendment Act, 2022, has been passed by Parliament in an attempt to replace the death penalty with a life sentence.
The passage means the death penalty has officially been repealed from Ghana’s statute books.
The amendment bill which was sponsored by the Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency, Francis Xavier Sosu, was passed today, Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
“The Criminal Offences Amendment Act, 2022 is duly read the third time and duly passed,” Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin said while passing the bill.
Speaking to the media, Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin said the amendment bill’s passage is cause for celebration, especially because international human rights organizations blasted the death penalty provision as abhorrent.
The Efutu MP noted that modifying the Criminal and Other Offenses Act is a good strategy to accommodate new types of sentencing.
“We have had a death penalty in our statute books for well over 50 years. It has been a concern. I’m happy to say that we have by this amendment of the parent act been able to repeal that provision that deals with the death penalty. So simply put, the death penalty is no more a punishment in our statutes,” he told the press.
He emphasized that the death penalty’s abolition is not intended to promote murder, a crime that in the past might land a criminal on death row.
“What we are saying is that God gives us life and under no circumstances should a person’s life be taken merely because of committing such an offence. That is not to say that those who take it upon themselves to take the lives of others are being encouraged to do so,” he noted.
