In a significant move, Ghana’s parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, joining the growing list of African nations that have taken this step in recent years.
The country currently has 170 men and six women on death row, but their sentences will now be replaced with life imprisonment. Ghana had previously mandated execution as the mandatory sentence for murder, but the last execution took place in 1993. Surveys indicated that a majority of Ghanaian citizens supported the abolition.
In 2022, seven people were sentenced to death in Ghana, but none were executed. Additionally, treason was also punishable by death in the country.
The bill to amend the Criminal Offences Act was proposed by MP Francis-Xavier Sosu and received support from the parliament’s Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs.
The Death Penalty Project (DPP), a London-based campaign organization, worked alongside Sosu to bring about this change in the law. Ghana becomes the 29th African country and the 124th globally to abolish the death penalty, according to a statement from the DPP.
