The Anti Homosexuality Bill 2023 (1)

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 has been passed by the Ghana Parliament and is causing widespread debate. The bill criminalizes homosexuality and imposes severe penalties, including imprisonment for life and the death penalty for certain cases. It also punishes the promotion or normalization of homosexuality. Supporters of the bill argue that it aims to protect the traditional family and Ugandan culture. However, there has been condemnation from international organizations and countries, stating that the bill violates human rights and is discriminatory. The United Nations and several countries are calling for the bill to be vetoed. If enacted, it would criminalize LGBTQ+ individuals and lead to the violation of their human rights. Hello, welcome to this new episode of the Diary of a Lawyer and today we are going to be talking about an issue that has been in the media widely reported which is referred to as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 passed by the Ghana Parliament on the 25th of March 2023. Again, we are going to simply focus on what the law actually says and provide an overview and just focusing on the context and the wider version of the law as opposed to the various debates around the issue, rightly or wrongly, whatever side people take but we are just focusing on the bill. So there is a bit of a history, there was a slightly similar lesser version of this bill in 2014 which was vetoed by the then country's president and this is slightly, if you like, an amended or upgraded version of the bill. It is called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 which is passed by the Ghana Parliament that states that homosexuality under the bill can be subjected to the criminal penal codes of the country and the bill, persons convicted of various sexes are liable, in some cases, imprisonment for life and it additionally prescribes the death penalty for what is called quote-unquote aggravated homosexuality and that latter offence includes sex in a position of authority or procured by intimidation or sex with persons older than 75 and sex with the disabled and mentally ill. Further, under its provisions, there is a classification of promotion quote-unquote or including normalisation of homosexuality which is punishable by imprisonment and a fine and there has been obviously widespread publicity around the bill since its passing. Just as a slight background, the memorandum to the bill stated that its objective was to establish a comprehensive and enhanced legislation to protect the traditional family quote-unquote by prohibition of the same sex relations and again quote-unquote promotion or recognition strengthening measures to deal with emerging quote-unquote threats to the traditional quote-unquote heterosexual family which is apparently designed to quote-unquote protect Ugandan culture from quote-unquote sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of quote-unquote sexual promiscuity and also adds that they're trying to protect children and the youth who apparently are made vulnerable to sexual abuse through homosexuality acts. That's the memorandum attached to the bill and I'm reading about him and also the other objective apparently according to the those who support the bill was that it sought to address gaps in existing legislation which apparently according to them did not provide for clearly provide for quote-unquote charging investigating prosecuting convicting and sentencing of offenders under the prohibition of the act. I mean it's a long bill but in essence it defined the offence of homosexuality to include the various forms of gay sex and also people holding out as gay, transgender, queer or binary categories of male and female and it sets out the penalties of the offence in the various sections and I think on the bottom another offence was the service grade and offence of making false and misleading allegations of offences on a bill punishable by one year's imprisonment and in the final passage the parliament agreed to suspend certain rules to pass the bill without further delay. There were two minority MPs who constituted minority courts i.e. they voted against and they say that they were committed to say how they say but that's how apparently according to them the majority works however there obviously have been widespread condemnations and statements for example the regional director for the east and southern Africa for Amnesty International is reported to have said that the president should veto the bill which amounted to a grave assault on LGBTI people quote-unquote and was also quote-unquote contentious of the constitution. He further called it ambiguous and vaguely worded whilst the high commissioner for human rights of the United Nations made similar calls and according to TARC the commission of human rights he stated that the bill was discriminatory and probably among the worst of its kind in the world. He was confused quote-unquote confused and confused consensual and non-consensual relations and argued that the former should not be criminalized i.e. consensual and the latter which should be prohibited without reference to gender or sexual orientation and he also added that he conflicted with the government's constitutions and international obligations. Obviously the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the European Union denounced the bill and they say they're watching events very closely and they hope that it is it is vetoed by the country's president. The UNI commission of human rights is also further stated that the that if signed into law by the president it will render lesbian, gay and bi-sexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing for being who they are and he added that it could provide cut-slash for the systematic violation of nearly all their human rights and substance abuse etc etc. So that's just an overview of what they've all said and briefly what the proposers of the bill stated in their own words and what some of us who oppose the bill said again in their own words but that's the overall context of what the so-called anti homosexuality bill 2023 passed by the government states and so there we shall leave it on this edition of the diary of a lawyer focusing on the actual context and general overview of the anti-homosexuality bill 2023 passed by the Ugandan parliament on I think the 23rd of March 2023. Thank you for listening we shall speak again in yet another episode of the diary of a lawyer and thanks for tuning in we shall speak again bye