Supreme Court sets hearing to address LGBTQ Bill

Ghana’s Supreme Court has set 17 July to decide whether to grant a request for an injunction by the lawyers of Amada Odoi and Richard Dela Sky against Parliament – a ruling which will decide whether Parliament can send the anti-LGBTQ Bill to the President for signing. Odoi, a researcher at the University of Cape Coast, sued the Speaker over the passage of the Bill, raising human rights issues. The Accra Times reports that she additionally sought to halt the Bill's passage on grounds that it would burden taxpayers. On 3 July, her lawyers argued before a five-member panel of justices, insisting that Parliament failed to carry out a financial impact analysis on the Consolidated Fund before it went ahead to pass the Bill – an act they said was in violation of the Constitution. ‘If the Bill becomes law, the indignity that the Constitution will suffer, can never be compensated,’ said Ernest Arkoh, lead counsel for Odoi. Attorney-General Godfred Dame who represented the state seemed to agree on the arguments on the burden on the Consolidated Fund. Dame specifically said there was evidence that the Speaker failed to submit an impact analysis.

Full Accra Times report