Madina MP fight against death penalty in Ghana gets International support

An effort by the Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency, Francis-Xavier Sosu to see to the abolishment of death penalty in Ghana’s judicial system has been commended highly by the Amnesty International (AI).

The commendation is contained in the AI’s Global Report on death sentences and executions for the year 2021.

This follows efforts by the Madina MP to give effect to the recommendations of the 2010 constitutional review commission and government white paper on abolition of death penalty.

The report in discussing notable country developments in Ghana stated “a Private Member’s Bill, proposed to Ghana’s Parliament in June by Francis-Xavier Sosu, the Member of Parliament for Madina, provides for the abolition of the death penalty, as a first step, from the country’s Criminal and Other Offences Act. At the end of the year, the proposed Bill was being prepared for a first reading, with discussions ongoing on expanding it to cover provisions in the Armed Forces Act that impose the death penalty.”

Latest statistics in Ghana shows that there are about 165 convicted persons currently under sentence of death as at the end of 2021, 6 of whom are foreigners and comprising 159 men and 6 women.

According to Amnesty International, the resort to the death penalty by a minority of states was on the rise, with increase in global executions by 20 percent on the 2020 figure (from at least 483 to at least 579), while the number of known death sentences increased by almost 40 percent (from at least 1,477 in 2020 to at least 2,052 in 2021).

According to Hon. Francis-Xavier Sosu “The death penalty being part of our laws inflicts not only immerse psychological pain and torture on accused persons and assassination officers, but also smacks of practices of backward societies. In view of this, it is worth pointing out that Ghana has not applied the death penalty since 1993. There is therefore the need to amend sections 46, 49, 49A, 180, 194 and 317A of the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960, (Act 29). We must as a country take steps to expunge the death clause from our laws.”

Amnesty International is a movement of ten (10) million people which mobilizes the humanity in everyone and campaigns for change so all persons can enjoy human rights.

In December 2020, the plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) saw a record number of states (123) supporting the adoption of its biennial resolution calling for the establishment of a moratorium on executions with a view to fully abolishing the death penalty — an increase of 19 votes compared to 2007, when the first UNGA resolution on this issue was adopted.

If the Private Member’s Bill initiated by Hon. Sosu is passed, Ghana would achieve at least 95 percent abolishing of the death penalty, and become the 25^th African country to do so following neighbours including Sierra Leone, Central Africa Republic, Guinea, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Togo and Chad, among others.