The Ghanaian parliament has voted overwhelmingly to remove the death penalty for capital offence, joining a long list of African nations that have done so in recent times.
Ghana currently has 170 men and six women on death row, whose sentences will now be replaced by life imprisonment.
According to the BBC, the most recent execution in Ghana took place in 1993, as execution has been a mandatory sentence for murder. Opinion surveys suggested that most Ghanaians approved of the abolition.
Seven individuals were sentenced to death in Ghana in 2022, but none were executed. Treason is also a capital offense in Ghana.
MP Francis-Xavier Sosu introduced the measure to modify the Criminal Offences Act, which was supported by the Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs.
According to the BBC, Sosu collaborated with the Death Penalty Project (DPP), a London-based campaign organization, to modify the law.
According to a DPP statement, Ghana is the 29th African country to abolish the death penalty and the 124th worldwide.
Many African countries, including Benin, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, have abolished the death penalty in recent years.
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.”
He went on to say that this will pave the way for a free and enlightened society that reflects “Our common belief that the sanctity of life is inviolable”.
