Supreme Court sits on parliament’s anti-LGBTQ+ case today

Supreme Court (SC) will today, hear an applica­tion filed by Parliament in the anti-LGBTQ+ case.

Parliament filed the application on October 1 asking the apex court to give permission for it to file its de­fence, even though they had exceed­ed the 14 days set by Supreme Court rules.

At a press briefing in Accra on October 7, Justice Ellen Ofei Ayeh, a registrar of the Supreme Court told journalists that the Supreme Court is ready to receive all processes that need to be filed.

“The Supreme Court is ready to hear every matter where parties have complied with the rules of court directing the processes to be filed before a hearing is held,” Justice Ayeh said. supreme Court rules.

In a statement issued three weeks ago, the Judicial Service said the Supreme Court (SC) can only conduct hearing on the pending cases when the parties in the matter file processes as stipulated under Rule 48 of the Supreme Court Rules 1996, CI 16, the Judicial Service of Ghana has clarified.

The Judicial Service, said it was not the fault of the SC that the hearing of the substantive matter had been delayed.

The explanation comes on the back of a planned demonstration by Mr Samuel George Nartey, the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, and one of the sponsors of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, today, September 17.

Mr Nartey had recently explained on TV3 that he and others would march against the Chief Justice on September 17, 2024.

According to the legislator, the de­cision of the SC on July 17, 2024 to defer ruling on the interlocutory in­junction to restrain Parliament from transmitting the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill to the President for assent until the substantive case is heard and deter­mined, is a ‘deliberate and malicious’ attempt by the Chief Justice to delay the passage of the Bill into law, necessitating the protest march to demand a timetable for the hearing of the case.

The Judicial Service said that the SC sat as a panel of five Judges to hear the two applications on May 8, 2024, July 3, 2024 and July 17, 2024.