John Evans Atta Mills, President of the Republic of Ghana,

GHANA: GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS THE RECOMMENDATION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

July 10, 2012: the Government of Ghana, among many others, has also accepted the recommendation of the Constitution Review Commission that the death penalty in article 13 of the Constitution be completely abolished and that the penalty be replaced with imprisonment for life.
“The sanctity of life is a value so much engrained in the Ghanaian social psyche that it cannot be gambled away with judicial uncertainties,” is written in the White Paper on the Report of the Constitution Review Commission, signed by John Evans Atta Mills, President of the Republic of Ghana, and made public with a Gazette notification on 15 June 2012.
Now, the Government is to set up a five-member Implementation Committee with the mandate to implement the recommendations accepted by Government. “The Implementation Committee is to start work immediately, but because this is an election year, it is most likely that actual processes leading to the amendments may have to be deferred till after the elections,” is written in the White Paper.
The Constitution Review Commission was inaugurated by President Mills on 11 January 2010, and it submitted its Report to Government on 20 December 2011.
In March 2011, Matteo Mecacci, as a member of the Board of Directors of Hands Off Cain and as Speaker of the OSCE on Human Rights, Democracy and Humanitarian Issues, was invited at the National Constitutional Conference, held in Accra to give its main reform proposals to the Constitution Review Commission, including the issue of “retention or abolition" of the death penalty. (Sources: Hands Off Cain, 10/07/2012)