Ghana: The Mystery of the Missing Anti-LGBTQI+ Legislation

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 24, 2025.

This week, Ghana’s opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), took to national television to announce that the controversial bill known as the Proper Human Rights and Family Values Bill had mysteriously disappeared from Parliament. The bill had appeared on the official Order Paper (Parliament’s agenda) for debate—then suddenly vanished.

The bill, commonly referred to as the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (originally titled the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021), was re-introduced into Parliament on 25 February 2025.

The initial bill had already passed Parliament in February 2024. However, then-President Nana Akufo-Addo refrained from signing it into law, citing ongoing litigation challenging its constitutionality. After nearly a year in the court system—and amid the bill’s weaponization as a campaign issue during the presidential race—the court ultimately dismissed the case. The judges ruled that they could not issue a decision on a bill that had not yet been enacted, creating a perfect catch-22: it wasn’t law, therefore not justiciable.

Following the 2024 elections, the opposition NPP lost power, and the new National Democratic Congress (NDC) government reconstituted Parliament. The defeated party’s MPs re-introduced the measure in February 2025 as a ten-member-sponsored Private Members’ Bill.

When the bill disappeared from the Order Papers, just this past week, (Oct 20, 2025) the opposition took to Ghanaian television, accusing the NDC government of deliberately burying it.

For nine months—from 25 February to 24 October 2025—the bill appeared to be progressing quietly through parliamentary committees. But transparency about its trajectory has been nonexistent. Now, the opposition insists the reintroduced bill had cleared committee stages and was ready for a vote when it suddenly disappeared.

Transcript for the above Video

“We are asking the NDC government—where is the Human Sexual Rights Bill? It had gone through the process and been approved. Today, the Majority Leader says the Speaker is not aware, the Clerk is not aware—but it was the Speaker who approved this same Bill as a Private Members’ Bill, and the Clerk who wrote the letter accompanying its gazetting. Why are they suddenly denying knowledge?This clearly shows an attempt by the NDC government to run away from this Bill. Why are they running? The Bill they thought was important yesterday should be even more important today. When we began this Bill in 2021, we did not see two South African gay couples declaring their love at Independence Square. Under President Mahama, that has happened. We demand that this Bill be reintroduced and passed now. We will not allow the NDC to run away from it.”

The Government’s Response

Today, the Majority Leader, Hon. Mahama Ayariga, appeared on the same television network to explain the disappearance. He asserted that the bill had already passed Parliament in February 2024 and remained “operative,” merely awaiting the signature of President John Dramani Mahama. In essence, he argued that the re-introduction was irrelevant because the legislation was still pending presidential assent.

Transcript for the above Video

"In the Family Value Bill , my recollection is that it was passed by Parliament already to

my recollection that we passed this already as Parliament we passed it and the issue

was eh giving it the Presidential assent so that is were it should be taken up. I don’t see

why anybody should be bringing it up as a Bill that we have passed already. I think the

step should push for it to be given the eh assent. Yesterday I saw it on the other paper

and I was asking myself who brought this really a Bill that we have passed already. You

haven’t convinced me that you know there’s a need for us to work on that Bill that we

have already uh passed. So, in all sincerity and I like to be very very frank and open I did

ask the speaker, I said speaker but this Bill was passed and why is it on our Order

Paper again and then the speaker himself also expressed surprise finding it on the

Order Paper and I recall we invited the clerk and the speaker invited the clerk in my

presence and asked the clerks how did this Bill find its way advertise on the Order Paper

because he didn’t know how it got to the Order Paper. and me I like to be very , very

transparent. If the clerk ,” I wish you were here” I would have said it in his presence ,

yesterday this thing happened, when I saw it , I said this Bill , what is it doing here we

passed it already , why are we invited to consider it again and so that is the , uh so the

only one that indeed yesterday uhm speaker and I agreed should attract our attention is

the one brought by Hon_Patricia Ageh she’s here that is the Property Rise of Spouse’s

Biĺl…"

Why This Assertion Appears Suspect

1. Why wasn’t it signed immediately? If the bill had already passed, why did President Mahama, who took office on 7 January 2025, fail to sign it on day one, especially after campaigning on his commitment to sign such a law if presented with it.2. Contradictory messaging: The President has publicly stated that his government was preparing a new, government-sponsored bill to address “family and moral issues,” never once suggesting that all he needed to do was sign the existing 2024 legislation.These inconsistencies suggest either deliberate political hedging or confusion within the ruling party.

The Political Stakes and Human Toll

This ongoing tug-of-war reveals the deep tension between domestic populism and global condemnation. The bill enjoys overwhelming popularity at home—estimated at 98% parliamentary support and approval from more than 90% of Ghanaians, according to Afrobarometer surveys. Yet, if enacted, Ghana risks billions of dollars in lost international aid, investment, and loans, as key partners have vowed to reconsider financial relations with any state criminalizing sexual orientation or advocacy.

International condemnation of the Bill has been swift and sustained, and the government’s current hedging appears aimed at delaying the inevitable, an economic backlash that could strip Ghana of billions in aid, loans, investment, and trade opportunities.

Meanwhile, this legislative limbo has dire consequences for Ghana’s LGBTQI+ community. Each new wave of political theater further endangers lives, emboldening mob attacks, family expulsions, and arbitrary arrests. The community remains trapped in the crossfire of populist politics and moral panic, scapegoated, vilified, and unprotected.

What the Bill Actually Does

At its core, the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill criminalizes LGBTQ identity, punishing people for self-identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer, and criminalizes so-called “promotion” of LGBTQ rights. In practice, that sweeps in advocacy, community organizing, legal support, healthcare, media reporting, and even affirming speech. It targets who people are, their existence,  and the mere act of speaking up for their rights.

Why the Theatrics Make Things Worse

Because Parliament keeps staging and restaging the bill, appearing on the Order Paper, vanishing, and reappearing in talking points, the issue remains “up in the air,” fueling confusion, anger, and vigilantism. The spectacle heightens attention and hostility without resolution. Each news cycle becomes a green light for heightened harassment while offering no protection to those most at risk.

Damned if Signed, Damned if Stalled

Whether the bill is passed and attested to, or left hanging in limbo, or never fully enacted, the outcome on the ground is equally repressive and dangerous. The law’s text criminalizes identity and advocacy; the limbo sustains a climate of  anger on one side and fear on the other, driven by entrenched religious and societal taboos and amplified by political game-playing. In both scenarios, LGBTQI+ Ghanaians face discrimination, surveillance, arbitrary arrests, family expulsions, and violence.

Law or Limbo—Both Punish the Same People

This is not a policy debate; it’s a campaign against existence. By criminalizing identity and labeling rights work as “promotion,” the bill turns ordinary life into a crime. And by keeping the bill in perpetual motion, appearing, disappearing, teased for a vote, the political class manufactures uncertainty that incites hostility and violence.Leadership worthy of a constitutional democracy would end the theatrics, reject the criminalization of identity and advocacy, and affirm that fundamental rights are not a bargaining chip. Until then, Ghana is choosing between two forms of repression: codified persecution or performed persecution. Both leave LGBTQI+ people exposed, and both will be remembered not as a defense of “family values,” but as an assault on human dignity.

This continues to unfold in real time, as we will see if the President, who took office in 2025, now comes out and signs the initial legislation passed in 2024.

What is the Law regarding whether or not the new President can sign a 2024 Bill

Relevant Legal Provisions

• The Acts of Parliament Act, 1960 (CA 7), Section 6 states: “The President shall signify that he assents … by signing … each copy of the Bill … and the Bill or part thereof shall become an Act of Parliament on the signature by the President of the first of the said copies.”

  
  

• The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (as amended) — Article 106(1) provides:

  “The power of Parliament to make laws shall be exercised by bills passed by Parliament and assented to by the President.”

Conditions and Caveats

• The bill must have legally completed the parliamentary stage (third reading and passage) and be properly presented to the President. Under Article 106(7) of the Constitution, the bill must be presented for assent.

  
  

• The dissolution of Parliament does not automatically invalidate a bill that has already passed but is awaiting assent, according to statements from MPs.

  
  

• However, if the bill was not presented properly or the procedure for assent was interrupted (e.g., because of dissolution before presentation), there may be a question of legal validity.

  
  

• The new President’s assent must be validly given, after presentation. Until assent, the bill is not yet law. If the presentation to the President was not carried out, or the bill lapsed in some procedural way, it may require re-passing.

  
  

• Heavy caveats apply in practice: even if the legal framework allows for assent by a new President, political reality, procedural steps, validity of documentation, and interpretation by courts all matter.

Seem like this assertion by the ruling party, that the older bill can be signed by this new president, is a set up for long delays because on my analysis it may not qualify for assent by this President:

The bill passed in February 2024, not yet assented, and then a new President taking office in January 2025 — it is legally plausible under Ghana law that the new President could give assent and thereby make it law.

But the situation hinges on whether:

• The bill was formally presented to the President for assent in the previous term: No Check! The President refused to formally accept the Bill in the last term due to ongoing litigation;

  
  

• All required procedures (readings, committee stages, presentation) were validly completed. As far as I know this did occur - Check

  
  

• The new Parliament or political actors didn’t treat the bill as lapsed or needing re-introduction. No Check - as evidenced by the the reintroduction in 2025.

  
  

• There has been no court ruling or procedural bar indicating that the bill expired or lost validity with the dissolution of Parliament. Check

  
  

Because of this, while the legal framework supports a new President assenting to an earlier-passed bill, in practice the situation often becomes contested, as is likely to happen here.

Please note I am not an expert on Ghana's political process or procedures.

By Melanie Nathan, Commissionermnathan@gmail.com

Country Conditions Expert witness for LGBTQI+ Asylum seekers from Ghana and other African countries.