Advocacy groups intensify efforts on review of two laws

Daily Graphic Pg 11, Sat. Jan. 02/10

Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

The Leadership and Advocacy for Women Empowerment in Africa (LAWA) Ghana Alumnae Incorporated in collaboration with the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA) has embarked on a series of advocacy workshops in all the 10 regions of the country, as part of a consultative process on a review of the Property Rights of Spouses (PRSB) and the Intestate Succession laws.
The review of the laws is to ensure maximum protection of property rights of spouses and also address problems encountered in the implementation of Interstate Succession Law, 1985 (PNDCL 111).
The workshops, which formed part of a pre-legislation advocacy fora, have brought together stakeholders from the Attorney General's Department, gender advocates, civil society groups and personnel from the security services such as Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) and the Ghana Prisons Service to sensitise the general public to the review of the two laws and to advocate for their early passage.
Processes for the review were initiated by the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Department, in fulfilment of Article 22 of the 1992 Constitution which calls on Parliament to enact legislation to ensure that a spouse is not deprived of a reasonable provision out of the estate of a deceased spouse whether or not the spouse died having made a will.
The said provision also calls on Parliament to, as soon as practicable after coming into force of the Constitution, enact legislation regulating the property rights of spouses.
Gender advocates contend that Ghana has an obligation under international human rights laws such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the enjoyment of the same rights and responsibilities within and after marriage.
The Director of Legislative Drafting at the Attorney-General’s Department, Ms Estelle Matilda Appiah, who briefed the participants, said the country’s first major legal pluralism legislation was the Intestate Succession Act (PNDCL 111) and that this legislation needed to be reviewed to deal with anomalies that had become apparent after more than 20 years of its implementation, adding that the Law as a tool for social change was complicated by the pluralistic legal system in the country.
She said courts in the country had attempted to deal with the complexity of issues relating to property rights in marriages but pointed out that decisions arrived at varied and lacked consistency.