Professor Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, a law lecturer at the University of Ghana, has asserted that the Clerk to Parliament must respect the law by not submitting the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2024 passed by the House to President Akufo-Addo for assent.
He said it is incumbent on the Clerk of Parliament not to transmit the bill to the presidency owing to an injunction application being sought at the Supreme Court against both the legislature and the President.
His comments follow President Akufo-Addo’s letter to the Clerk of Parliament asking him to “cease and desist from transmitting” the anti-gay bill to the presidency after an initial attempt to do so failed.
In an interview on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme yesterday [March 19], Prof. Appiagyei-Atua said, “When an application for an injunction is issued against a party to a suit we have to wait for the court to determine whether the injunction should hold or not before any action can be taken,” adding, “so it is incumbent on the Clerk of Parliament not to take any action until the court has determined the matter”.
“Whether the injunction is thrown away or upheld, if it is thrown away then what it means is that it paves the way for the Clerk of Parliament to submit the bill to the President and the President will be compelled and obliged by the constitution as well as the rules of court to accept that”.
He stressed that the President would be violating the rules of court if he should accept the bill and assent to it pending the determination of the Supreme Court.
Read more:
- Anti-gay bill transmission: President’s letter to Parliament isn’t a directive – Vincent Assafuah
- Anti-gay bill: Akufo-Addo’s letter is a threat to parliament and our democracy – Haruna
The law professor, however, noted that he does not attach any authority to the letter, adding that the letter “is not interfering in any way at all”.
“Whether the letter was issued or not, the President in abiding by the rules of court is not supposed to accept the bill in the first place because there is an application for injunction against the Clerk of Parliament from delivering the bill to the President to sign,” he stated.
Prof. Appiagyei-Atua maintained that following the Electronic Transaction Service levy (E-levy) debacle, the President might have learned lessons from it and would want to “respect the law” under the current circumstances.
Parliament unanimously passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2024 on Wednesday, February 28. President Akufo-Addo has yet to assent to the bill.
Meanwhile, two separate applications for injunction have been filed before the Supreme Court against the bill.
Private legal practitioner and journalist Richard Sky, in his suit, is praying to the Supreme Court to, amongst other reliefs, give an “order restraining the President of the Republic from assenting to ‘The Human and Sexual Values Bill, 2024”.
According to Sky, such action “will directly contravene the constitutional safeguards of liberties and rights of Ghanaians”.