President John Mahama
PRESIDENT JOHN Dramani Mahama has stated his willingness to assent to the controversial ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill’ also known as the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, if only Parliament passes the bill and sends it to his office.
Addressing a delegation from the Christian Council at the Jubilee House yesterday, President Mahama emphasised his stand on the passage of the bill, indicating that his office is ever ready to sign the bill anytime Parliament presents it to his office.
“A person’s gender is determined at birth, and the family is the foundation of our nation. That is our position. So there are no questions or equivocations about what we believe.
“I believe that we have no questions or equivocations about what we believe. I believe that we are completely aligned with the Christian Council in terms of your belief. We agree with the Speaker to relay the bill and let Parliament debate it.
“And if there are any amendments or adjustments that need to be made, if the people’s representatives in Parliament endorse the bill, vote on it, and pass it, and it comes to me as President, I will sign it,” President Mahama said.
During the early days of John Mahama’s administration, he is on record to have said that the bill is not needed if Ghanaian schools do a good job of teaching family values.
“If we are teaching our values in school, we won’t need to pass a bill to enforce our family values. That’s why I think more than even the Family Values Bill, it is agreeing on a curriculum that inculcates these values into our children as they are growing up, so that we don’t need to legislate it,” he said during a meeting with religious leaders.
Bill Reintroduction
Speaker Alban Bagbin recently clarified that the anti-LGBTQ+ bill must be reintroduced in the current Parliament after it expired at the end of the 8th Parliament.
This was after the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, argued that the bill had already been passed and did not need to be reintroduced.
“The Eighth Parliament is history. So are all the businesses that were pending in the Eighth Parliament. They all ended with the Eighth Parliament, and so we have a new Parliament, the Ninth Parliament, and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced,” the Speaker stated.
The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill) was introduced in 2021, seeking harsher penalties and bans on LGBTQ+ advocacy.
In February 2024, Parliament unanimously passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, imposing up to three years prison term for identifying as LGBTQ+ and up to five years for funding/organising related groups.
In the lead up to the December 2024 general election, rumours purported by the then National Democratic Congress (NDC) indicated that former President Nana Akufo-Addo was unwilling to assent to the anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
Rev. Ntim Fordjour, Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin South, who doubles as a sponsor of the bill, in an interview, clarified that legal challenges prevented the bill from reaching the President’s desk for consideration.
“I have never said that anyone can blame President Nana Akufo-Addo for our loss. Neither did I say that President Akufo-Addo failed or refused to assent to the bill,” he said.
“When the hands of Parliament were stayed and enjoined from transmitting the bill, the President could not even have the privilege of receiving it to take a decision upon.”
Rev. Fordjour explained that from the early stages of the bill’s journey through Parliament, it faced multiple legal hurdles. These challenges, he said, started from the first reading and stakeholder engagements through to the amendment stages.
“Even before the third reading, there were many legal challenges. A lot of dissenting opinions tested it in court, and determinations were made,” he noted.
He further added that just when Parliament thought all legal issues had been resolved and the bill could be transmitted, a fresh lawsuit emerged.
This new legal action placed an injunction on Parliament, effectively halting the process of forwarding the bill to the President.
BY Prince Fiifi Yorke