The High Court in Accra presided over by Justice Ellen Lordina Serwah Mireku has fixed March 21, 2025, to deliver judgment in the case in which private citizen, Paul Boama Sefa, has sued the Speaker of Parliament and the Attorney General over the Anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
Before fixing the date on Thursday, December 12, 2024 lawyers of the Speaker of Parliament (1st Defendant) requested for time to file supplementary legal submissions.
The Court has subsequently directed them to file it by December 20, 2024, while the parties are to return to the Court next year, March 21, 2025, for judgment.
Mr. Sefa, a farmer in the Ashanti Region in his writ alleged that the Speaker and the Attorney General have violated the constitution in the handling of the Proper Sexual Human Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill.
According to him, the process should not take place until the statutory provisions of section 100(1) of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) are complied with.
The Plaintiff is seeking an order directing the Speaker, his deputies, his agents, assigns, and privies to ensure compliance with section 100(1) of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) before any further steps are taken in respect of the Bill.
He is also asking the Court for a perpetual Injunction restraining the defendants from further breaches of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).
The farmer contended that, sometime in 2021, the Promotion of the Bill was presented to the Speaker by eight Members of Parliament (MPs) as a Private Members’ Bill.
According to him, this statutory breach, forms plans by the Speaker to violate the laws of the country.
It is his case that, the failure of the Speaker of Parliament to exercise the provisions of the law was intentional given his firm determination to allow the Bill to go through the legislative process despite being fully aware of the statutory conditions precedent for laying the Bill.
He wants a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further breaches of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) plus any other relief the court may deem fit.
EIB Network’s Legal Affairs Correspondent, Murtala Inusah, reports that the judgment of this case (which is the first to be televised at the High Court) will come after the Supreme Court has put finality to Richard Sky and Dr. Amanda Odoi’s cases.
Judgment in those two writs has been scheduled for December 18, 2024.
