The Chief Justice has granted a request from the Attorney-General to allow the media to livestream the hearings of the lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the anti-LGBTQ bill passed by Parliament in February.
Allowing cameras at the Supreme Court is usually not the norm except for certain high-profile cases like election petitions. The exception was made for this particular matter due to the high public interest in the controversial issue of LGBTQ criminalisation.
Civil society actors and the international community find the bill problematic, even as consecutive groups are mounting pressure on the President to sign it into law.
Plaintiffs, Richard Dela Sky and gender activist, Dr. Amanda Odoi are seeking to have Ghana’s highest court stop Parliament from submitting the bill to the President for signing, as well as declare its nullity among many other orders.
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The cases are being presided by Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo and four other justices on a five-member bench.
On the first day of the hearing, lawyers for Richard Sky and the Speaker of Parliament who is a respondent in the matter, argued preliminary issues on the processes that were filed, as justices poked holes into legal materials submitted in support of the cases.
At the end of the proceedings, Richard Sky was granted time to amend previous legal materials he filed for the case. The Speaker of Parliament and the Attorney-General who are co-respondents have also been asked to file other processes by May 17. But it’s not yet certain if another hearing is set for May 17, as the Chief Justice adjourned the whole case indefinitely.
