News:
June 22, 2023
The Intestate Succession Bill, 2022 has gone through Second reading in Parliament House. Deputy Attorney General and Minister for Justice Diana Asonaba noted that it’s coming in to remove anomaly in PNDC Law 111 and provide a uniform intestate succession law that would be applied in the country irrespective of inheritance system of the intestate or the type of marriage that has been contracted.
According to her there is no or little protection in the customary law for a surviving spouse neither spouse had the right to the property of the other.
As changes in the Ghanaian system has render the present law outmoded the nuclear family has gradually eroded the significant of the extended family in a manner that pertain to the Western world that is giving the nuclear family greater prominence which is not which is not reflected in the existing law.
“Mr. Speaker the customary kind of marriage does not regard the wife as part of the economic needs of the husband as a result the wife’s claim to the husbands property is very limited, but currently there is a shift towards the wife in the economic needs of the husband and has reduced the influence of the extended family in the intestate succession”.
He however added that the current law does not make provision for polygamous marriage where the deceased survived by a number of spouses.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com