Humanist Association wants anti-LGBTQ bill thrown out, says the facts are clear
The Humanist Association in Ghana is confident about the fact that the current anti-gay bill currently before Ghana’s Parliament will be thrown away citing it as an affront to the minority group in the country.
According to the Spokesperson of the Humanist Association of Ghana, Justice Okai Allotey, the first public hearing of the bill was very educative, stating that it exposes the motion of the bill is misleading.
For him, anyone who observed the proceedings of the committee would note how the debate separated substance from noise.
“We have from the onset been calling on the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana AIDS Commission to debunk those data. Because we have looked at the data and the information that was put to the memo attached to the bill and we have realized that those are not the accurate information,” the Spokesperson disclosed.
He continued “We have believed in the Parliamentarians of Ghana, we know Parliament is a house of facts and records. So with the mountain of facts being shared, they will not listen to it and not do a different thing. That will be disappointing to us. So we will try and give them the benefit of the doubt for them to interrogate the facts that will be out and we want the total withdrawal of the bill”.
A sitting on the anti-LGBTQI Bill also known as the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill was commenced by Parliament on November 11, 2021, having been laid in the House on Monday, August 2, 2021, and read for the first time.
The Bill if passed will criminalize activities of members of the LGBTQ Community in Ghana.
However, a private legal practitioner, Akoto Ampaw who appeared before Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs on behalf of a group of Concerned Ghanaian Citizens against the passing of the Bill want Parliament to reject the anti-LGBTQI Bill, which he claims does not meet legal requirements as stipulated in the 1992 Constitution.
He explained that the Bill in its current form violates Article 1(1) (2): ”which upholds the sovereignty of the people of Ghana in whose name and whose welfare the powers of Government shall be exercised in the manner and within the limits laid down in the Constitution”.
“Irrespective of the number of people who support the Bill, the legislation must meet the first provision of the constitution. If it does not by Clause (2) of Article 1 of that bill or legislation is void.”
Apostle Ofori Kuruagu of the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council also in his argument to the Committee indicated that Parliament as the representative of the people at all material times was expected to mirror the broad opinions of its constituents and where appropriate serve as a vehicle to satisfy the interest of the people whose mandate it represented through the vehicle of legislation.
He is also of the view that the passage of the bill would give a clarified expression to the sovereign will of the majority of the people which Parliament represented and a bold attempt from the dangerous notion that anything foreign is “good for the nation.”
“This nation is being inundated with all forms of foreign values…we see this bill as a bold attempt to disassociate Ghana from such a menace”, he added.
By: Stella Annan | myactiveonline.com Twitter @activetvgh
