A human rights organisation, Amnesty International (AI), is pushing for the removal of death penalty from Ghana’s statutes, as the organisation believes its existence is breach of the fundamental human rights of those who suffer its fate.
Martin Kpebu, a member of the local chapter of the organisation, made the call when leadership in Ghana visited President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House on Friday.
He believes the country can achieve over 95% of the abolition of the death penalty without a constitutional amendment, indicating that legal authority for capital punishment in Ghana can be found in six instances in the statutes.
Mr. Kpebu said “our submission is that to the extent that section 46 which is on murder and that is by far overwhelmingly the commonest offence that the death penalty is given today is in an ordinary Act of Parliament, all that we have to do is to amend section 46 and the other sections of Act 29.”
“Even though we know that for a long time now Ghana does not execute persons on death roll, but Your Excellency, the conditions, especially the solitary confinement, are practically mental torture. I have been to Nsawam a couple of times and it is not a good sight to behold,” he argued.
Samuel Agbotsey, another advocate, said the issue of overcrowding in Ghanaian prisons is a matter of international concern, and called on the government to take immediate steps to improve prison conditions in the country.
He urged government to take steps to actualize its plans regarding building two prison service hospitals in the Southern and Northern sectors of the country as contained in the 2016 Manifesto of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
President Akufo-Addo described the concern as a genuine one which needed attention.
“The solution that you are proposing is an ingenious one, to the extent that five out of six offences can in fact be dealt with by statutory enactments is something that the Attorney General and Minister for the Interior and other security agencies in the country will put their heads around the idea and bring some suggestions to us in Cabinet for a decision,” he noted.
The President, therefore, stressed his commitment to have all the other issues they tabled such as the Advancing of Non-Custodial Sentencing in Ghana, improvement of prison conditions, and the ratification of some three international protocols; the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at the abolition of the death penalty, the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), and Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, will all be addressed and dealt with appropriately.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent