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By: Valentia Tetteh The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has directed that the controversial Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, widely known as the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill, be reintroduced in the current (Ninth) Parliament following the expiration of the Eighth Parliament. His ruling brings clarity to a week of debate and confusion among lawmakers after the Majority Leader argued that the bill, having already been passed by the previous Parliament, did not require reintroduction. However, the Speaker firmly rejected that position, explaining that all pending business before the Eighth Parliament automatically lapsed when it was dissolved. “The Eighth Parliament is history. So are all the businesses that were pending in the Eighth Parliament. They all ended with the Eighth Parliament. We now have a new Parliament, the Ninth Parliament, and therefore what was pending there came to an end and has to be reintroduced,” Mr. Bagbin stated. Providing further clarification, the Speaker confirmed that the bill had been transmitted to former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who declined to give presidential assent. He, however, noted that the presidency failed to fulfill its constitutional duty to return the bill to Parliament with reasons 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,” he remarked. Mr. Bagbin added that the current Parliament has now taken custody of the bill, which was originally introduced as a private member’s bill sponsored by some MPs with the backing of traditional authorities, religious 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 entire 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, traditional leaders, religious leaders, and civil society, and so we would process it as a private member’s bill,” he said. The Speaker emphasized that before the bill can be formally laid before the House again, he must fulfill certain procedural requirements as outlined in Parliament’s Standing Orders. “Our rules have specified what the Speaker is expected to do, which I will do before it can be laid in the House,” he concluded. Source link
