Akufo-Addo assents to bills abolishing death penalty in Ghana

President Nana Akufo-Addo has assented to the Criminal and Other Offenses (Amendment) Bill, 2022, and Armed Forces (Amendment) Bill, 2022, to substitute life imprisonment for the death penalty.

Ghana’s Parliament on Tuesday (25 July) voted to remove the death penalty from the 1960 Criminal and Other Offences Act and the 1962 Armed Forces Act, replacing it with a life sentence.

The amendment bill which was sponsored by the MP for Madina, Francis Xavier-Sosu , was assented to on Wednesday (2 August).

Background

Since 1977, Amnesty International has been campaigning for the global abolition of the death penalty. In November 2022, in a statement to a delegation from Amnesty International Ghana, the President of Ghana expressed the need to remove the death penalty from the statute books.

Amnesty International’s latest report on the global use of the death penalty in 2022 shows that seven new death sentences were handed down in Ghana, bringing the total of people facing the death penalty in the country to 172 by the end of the year. However, no executions have been carried out since 1993.

As of today, 23 out 55 African countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

Reporting by Fred Dzakpata in Accra

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