Lead sponsor of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, Sam George, is not convinced that President Akufo-Addo is genuinely not assenting to the controversial bill because of a pending legal challenge at the Supreme Court.
The Prampram law maker believes that the President is merely seeking cover behind that so-called lawsuit not to assent to the bill.
Speaking on JoyFM’s Top Story on March 5, he explained that from previous experiences such as the Electronic Transaction Levy, despite a suit pending at the time, the President still assented to it with the explanation that if the Supreme Court ruled against it, the law would be void.
Therefore, for President Akufo-Addo to say he would wait on a court ruling before he decides whether or not to assent to the bill shows that he did not support it in the first place, Mr George argued.
He further argued that the anti-LGBTQ+bill was one that the nation supports; therefore, if the President assented to it despite the court action, he would have been lauded.
“The President is being the puppet master here with a few other players in here. The President is trying to find an excuse not to sign but again you want to find out if the President is being principled or not. There was a court case on the passage of the e-levy.
“The Supreme Court was yet to rule on the matter. The president’s principled position was that he was going to proceed and if the Supreme Court ruled against it then that law would be invalidated,” he said.
He continued that “Even the constitution, portions of it have been invalidated by the ruling of the Supreme Court, and so the question here is even e-levy the President decided to proceed without waiting for the ruling from the Supreme Court. On the case of Domelevo, the president decided to proceed and act without waiting for the Supreme Court to rule.