Johnson Asiedu Nketia, National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said that although the President can decide not to act on the Anti-gay bill because of the lawsuits at the Supreme Court, there is no law baring him from receiving the document.
According to him, none of the lawsuits at the Supreme Court has also injuncted the President from receiving the bill.
Parliament, on February 28, 2024, passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values bill also known as the Anti-LGBTQ+/Gay bill. But when the President was to receive and sign it into law, he said he was not going to do it until a lawsuit pending on the matter at the Supreme Court had been concluded. The matter, which was yet to filed in court at the time the President made his comments, according to many, smears suspicion.
The President, also through this Executive Secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante, wrote to the Clerk of Parliament telling him not to present the bill to the presidency for the President’s assent. The Clerk in return, has written to Mr. Bediatuo, asking when he deems appropriate to present the bill
Reacting to the development, the NDC Chairman had on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, told Accra-based JoyNews that “I am on the side of Parliament because the President has no reason to ask that Parliament should not submit the bill because the cases that are in court, the last time I checked, there’s no application for an injunction or any actual injunction granted that prevents the President from receiving the bill.
“The only application for an injunction that I have seen is to block the President from signing the bill. Receiving and signing are different things. So, if you don’t want to receive the bill, you don’t blame anyone who has gone to court because the reliefs being sought in court do not border on you not receiving. They say don’t work on it. But for the office receiving it, it’s a matter of impunity that is being shown by the President to frustrate the work of parliament.”
“Because Parliament has done their work up to a point, and they say to transmit this to the President. You don’t have the right not to receive. You can receive it, and after receiving it, you have options that have been provided under the constitution,” he argued further.
To him, President Akufo-Addo does not want to sign the bill but lacks the courage to say it due to the backlash he will receive from the majority of Ghanaians who have overwhelmingly supported the passage of the bill.
“And somebody is in court trying to injunct you from acting on the bill; that injunction does not say don’t receive the bill. So, for you to write to parliament that because I am on some injunction not to sign it, don’t bring it at all, it means you have a pre-meditated agenda. You don’t want to receive it or work on it or do anything with it, but you are not man enough to tell Ghanaians that I don’t want to do it” he noted.
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