Ghana
In 2023, Ghana abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes, a historic step.
Our work in the country dates back to 2010, when abolition of the death penalty was recommended by Ghana’s Constitutional Review Committee. Following abolition, we continue to collaborate closely with our local partners to ensure that this progress is consolidated and abolition is expanded to cover military offences.
When we first began working in Ghana, the death penalty was still the automatic punishment for some offences, meaning judges had no choice but to hand down a death sentence when a person was convicted of certain crimes. Despite this, no execution had been carried out since 1993.
In 2012, we brought a legal challenge before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which found that Ghana’s mandatory death penalty breached its obligations under international law. Despite this ruling, domestic Courts continued to hand out mandatory death sentences.
After more than a decade of sustained efforts among civil society and policymaking partners, Ghana abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 2023. The death penalty remains for military offences.
We pursued abolition in Ghana via both legal and political routes.
In collaboration with the Legal Resources Centre, we provided free legal representation to individuals who had been given mandatory death sentences.
As a result of our legal challenge related to the case of Dexter Johnson, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that his automatic death sentence breached Ghana’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). They recommended that his individual sentence be commuted, and that the mandatory death penalty should be removed entirely from law. When the government failed to comply, we filed a case before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2017. Although the Court declined to proceed on the basis that the matter had already been addressed by the UN Committee, the case contributed to growing momentum for reform.
In 2021, two Private Members’ Bills were introduced by the Honourable Francis-Xavier Sosu to abolish the death penalty for ordinary and military offences. We supported these efforts through providing empirical research, engaging with key stakeholders and sharing resources and expertise with parliamentarians, the policymakers and the media. Of note, in May 2022, we submitted a memorandum to the President and all parliamentarians in Ghana, raising awareness of the key issues with death penalty systems and setting out the case for abolition.
In summer 2022, the Bills passed through the Ghanaian Parliament for their first reading, before being referred to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Collaborating with Hon. Sosu and the Committee, we provided assistance sustaining evidence-based dialogue and engagement with the Bills through this process.
In 2023, Ghana abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes through legislative reform by passing the Criminal Offences (Amendment) Act.
We continue to work with Hon. Francis Sosu and other key stakeholders to promote the expansion of abolition, so that the death penalty is also outlawed for military offences. We are also advocating for the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits a country at the international level to never return to executing.
While abolition of the death penalty ensures that death sentences can no longer be handed down, and no executions can take place, the legacy of the death penalty can take some time to dismantle. Presidential pardons have reduced the number of people on death row, however we remain engaged in efforts to secure commutations for those who remain living on death row, awaiting resentencing.