Human rights lawyer and MP for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has hinted at petitioning the West African bloc, the ECOWAS court, to force President Akufo-Addo to sign the witchcraft bill and the armed forces amendment bill into law.
According to him, the reasons given by President Akufo-Addo for not assenting to the bills are “not reasonable enough.”
“I will appeal to the President to assent to the witchcraft bill as well as the armed forces amendment bill. The reason the President is giving is honestly not reasonable. It is also the same with the witchcraft bill because the anti-witchcraft bill is a bill that is consistent with the UN Convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women,” he told TV3.
However, he said that there are other avenues open to him for getting the president to assent to the bills.
“In my case, I am considering an action at the ECOWAS court for a declaration that the President’s continuous withholding of assent to those two critical bills that I led amounts to a violation of both our constitution and the human rights provisions in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in the UN Convention,” he hinted.
He therefore expressed surprise that the President, who is touted as a human rights person, would not assent to this very critical bill.”
The Madina lawmaker held the view that the President assenting to the bills, especially the anti-witchcraft bill, would be “a testament to his own legacy if he goes ahead and sign these bills.”
Francis-Xavier Sosu, who has so far championed over 17 private member’s bills on the floor of Parliament, criticised President Akufo-Addo for his refusal to assent to the bills.
He stressed that the President is not being honest with Ghanaians as far as his reasons for dissenting on the position of the bills, emphasising that Article 108 of the Constitution does not apply to the President.
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“I think the President is not being completely honest with the people of Ghana when it comes to the refusal to assent to these bills because Article 108 with all due respect to the President does not apply to the presidency. Article 108 is a law that applies to the legislature,” he stated.
However, Sosu was less optimistic about the possibility of securing two-thirds of the members of parliament to override the powers of the president to assent to the bills.
Madina MP Francis Xiaver Sosu says he will petition the ECOWAS to force President Akuffo Addo to assent to two of his private member bills.
The president has, in Article 108, refused to assent to the bills on criminalizing witchcraft and removing the death penalty.#NewsCentral pic.twitter.com/w9AM8O9bay
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) March 13, 2024
“The possibility of rallying a two-thirds majority to override the veto of the President I doubt whether it is something workable,” said Sosu, adding that, “I don’t believe that the current state of parliament would be able to rally a two-thirds majority.”