Ghana is the latest African country to abolish capital punishment as the country’s parliament voted against the death penalty on Tuesday.
According to a parliamentary committee report, the new law will change the state’s Criminal Offenses Act to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment.
Although there have not been any executions in Ghana since 1993, according to the Ghana prisons department, there were 176 people on death row as of last year. But President Nana Akufo-Addo has yet to sign the legislation into law.
“This is a great advancement of the human rights record of Ghana,” said Francis-Xavier Sosu, the parliamentarian who tabled the bill.
“We have conducted research, from the constitutional review to opinion polls, and they all show that the majority of Ghanaians want the death penalty removed.”
African countries have been embracing the anti-death penalty law. Rwanda abolished the death penalty in 2007, Burundi and Togo in 2009, Gabon in 2010, Benin in 2012, Congo and Madagascar in 2015, Guinea in 2016 for ordinary crimes and in 2017 for military crimes, and Burkina Faso in 2018.
Others that recently enacted legislation against capital punishment include Zambia, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea, and Central African Republic all in 2022, while Sierra Leone and Chad passed the law in 2012 and 2020.