News:
July 19, 2022
The Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project, a United Kingdom based organisation, Saul Lehrfreund, has pledged to assist Ghana’s Parliament to take death penalty off its statutory book when he led a delegation to call on the First Deputy Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Joseph Osei-Owusu on Tuesday, July 19, 2022.
According to him they had worked on Sierra Leone’s death penalty issues which were taken off their statutory books, and he was happy there are two private members bill to take off death penalty for ordinary offences. “We are delighted to learn this morning that those bills were gazetted on June 22, 2022 and the passage of legislation is now underway in Ghana. We are here to assist the process and give advice and answer any questions from our collective experience and years of working in this field”.
He further added that Ghana would join the majority of the world who has rejected capital punishment as an abuse of human right indicating that there are one hundred and twenty (120) countries globally who have rejected death penalty with just few countries left to do so.
Last year eighteen (18) countries around the world carried out judicial executions, and a vast majority of those executions were carried out in four (4) countries through death penalty, and majority of nations in the world who respect rule of law and human rights find the death penalty basically incompatible especially all democratic nations, he stated.
Mr. Saul Lehrfreund called on the First Deputy Speaker with Carulyn Hollhe from the Oxford University, Meg Govld, Death Penalty Project, Abdul-Razak Yakubu British High Commission and Hannah Crothers Australian High Commission.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com