Ghana’s Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has directed that the controversial Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill be reintroduced in the current 9th Parliament, declaring that it no longer holds any legal standing following the dissolution of the 8th Parliament.
His ruling ends days of confusion and disagreement among lawmakers after the Majority Leader maintained that the previous Parliament had already passed the bill and that it did not require reintroduction.
Bagbin, however, rejected that interpretation, clarifying that all unfinished business of the 8th Parliament expired when its term ended.
“The eighth Parliament is history. So are all the businesses that were pending in the eighth Parliament. They all ended with the eighth Parliament and so we have a new Parliament — the ninth Parliament — and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced,” he stated.
He also disclosed that the bill had been transmitted to former President Nana Akufo-Addo, who refused to sign it into law. According to the Speaker, the presidency breached constitutional procedure by failing to return the bill to Parliament with an official explanation for the refusal.
“They wrote to tell us that they would not assent to it. The only constitutional error they committed was that they didn’t give us reasons why they would not assent to it, and they did not transmit the bill back to us. They imprisoned it there,” Bagbin explained.
He added that the 9th Parliament has now reclaimed ownership of the bill, which began as a private member’s initiative backed by traditional authorities, faith leaders, and civil society organizations.
“As you would recall, that’s a private member’s bill, and so members of this House took it up. It went through the whole process as detailed in our Standing Orders. But as it went through the process, the new government indicated that they wanted to take it as a public bill.
“I personally disagreed and made it known to His Excellency the President that this was an initiative of our people — the traditional leaders, the religious leaders, civil society leaders and so we would process it as a private member’s bill.”
The Speaker concluded that he would fulfill the necessary procedural steps before the bill can be formally presented to Parliament again. “Our rules have given what the speaker is expected to do, which I will do before it can be laid in the House,” he reportedly said.
