Republic of Ghana Votes to Abolish the Death Penalty

Ghana's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, joining a long list of African countries that have done so in recent years. A statement from the Death Penalty Project says Ghana is the 29th African country to abolish the death penalty, and the 124th globally. In recent years many African states have abolished the death penalty, including Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone and Zambia.

The bill to amend the Criminal Offences Act was put forward by MP (Member of Parliament) Francis-Xavier Sosu and had the backing of the parliament's Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. MP Sosu worked with the Death Penalty Project, a non-profit based in London, to get the law changed.

Execution has been the mandatory sentence for murder and treason in Ghana. Last year seven people were sentenced to death in Ghana, but none were executed; the last execution in Ghana occurred in 1993. The country currently has 170 men and six women on death row, whose sentences will now be replaced with life imprisonment.

Mr Sosu said that "on death row, prisoners woke up thinking this could be their last day on earth. They were like the living dead: psychologically, they had ceased to be humans. Abolishing the death penalty shows that we are determined as a society not to be inhumane, uncivil, closed, retrogressive and dark."

Let's repeat that; "Abolishing the death penalty shows that we are determined as a society not to be inhumane, uncivil, closed, retrogressive and dark."

You can read more about the Death Penalty Project, a legal action NGO at Simons Muirhead & Burton LLP working to use the law to protect prisoners facing execution and achieve fairer and more humane justice systems.