The country of Ghana has had a change of heart, as it has voted to get rid of the death penalty, ABC News reports.
Human rights advocates such as Enoch Jengre, program officer of Ghana’s Legal Resource Center, are celebrating the change. “Ghana is upholding the constitutional and fundamental human right of everyone,” Jengre said. “No human being or institution should have the right to take the life of another.”
With the new change, 176 death row inmates, including six women, will now serve life in prison.
There are detractors, however. “It is going to encourage some people to engage in crime knowing that they will only end up in prison after conviction,” Raymond Kuudaah, a Ghanaian social worker, opined.
Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, the lawyer and politician behind the bill, says the decision was made with the families of former victims in mind. “I have seen firsthand that the death penalty does not bring a sense of justice or closure to the families of crime victims, and neither does it deter offenders,” Sosu said, according to The Guardian.
“It was my view that we as a nation were better than this. I introduced these bills because I wanted the courts to cease imposing an inhuman punishment.”
Source: Black Enterprise
