Nana Addo assents to bills abolishing death penalty in Ghana

He assented to the bills on Wednesday, August 2, 2023.

On Tuesday, July 25, 2023, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty, joining the ranks of progressive African nations that have recently moved to repeal capital punishment.

The death penalty is a form of capital punishment instituted by the constitution which requires that certain crimes, as dictated by the law be punished by death.

For years, some civil society organisations have called for the abolition of the death penalty.

In Ghana, capital punishment is a mandatory sentence for certain offenses including murder, treason, and genocide.

Crimes punishable by death in Ghana are:

Murder

A person who intentionally causes death by unlawful harm "shall be liable to suffer death."

Treason

The Constitution and Criminal Code list treason as punishable by death.

The Constitution states that individuals who commit treason against the constitutional order "shall, upon conviction, be sentenced to suffer death."

War crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide

Genocide is punished by death. Genocide includes the following acts committed with the intent of destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group: killing or causing serious mental or bodily harm to members of the group, inflicting conditions intended to destroy the group, imposing measures to end births in the group, or forcibly transferring children from that group to another group.

However, Ghana last executed convicts on death row in 1993, the year of Ghana's return to civilian rule. 12 people convicted of armed robbery or murder were executed by a firing squad.