The Ministry for Gender Children and Social Protection will be partaking in a gender dialogue to engage and sensitise stakeholders on the new Intestate Succession Bill before parliament.
This will be Third National Gender Dialogue coming up on March 8, and will look at laws that disadvantage women in society with focus on assessing the PNDC intestate succession law 111, and the implementation of a new intestate succession bill.
[contextly_sidebar id=”1qmIkbPt2km29QZtI2ZMYjMoC4CIUA8R”]The Intestate Succession Bill was laid before the Parliament on November 3, 2009, and it sought a more responsive approach to the needs of nuclear families whose parents and spouses die intestate.
If passed, the bill will replace the Intestate Succession Act, 1985 PNDC Law 111.
The objective of the new bill is to make the intestate succession regime more responsive to the needs of the immediate family of persons who die intestate.
The bill will also provide a uniform intestate succession that will be applied throughout the country irrespective of the inheritance system of the intestate and the type of marriage contracted.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, the Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, explained that there weaknesses in the current succession law, PNDC Law 111, hence the need for the new bill.
She stressed that traditional and religious leaders had a critical role to play in implementing this bill when it is eventually passed.
According to her, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, is actively engaging traditional leaders along with other stakeholders, to educate them on the benefits of the new law.
“We are engaging extensively with the traditional leadership, with the traditional leaders and with community leaders and that is why we are having the dialogue to throw more light on the law and how beneficial the law is for family values and even for traditional values.”
Nana Oye Lithur stated that the new law will seek to address the sections of society that were not adhering to the previous PNDC law 111.
“Although the PNDC law 111 was to apply irrespective of the marriage, your religion or your ethnic background, we realized that Muslims were not applying the law; so these were all considerations that the law reform commission took in when they were designing this law.”
The Minister also revealed that the Domestic Violence Act will hopefully be passed by July this year.
“We’ve had a legislative instrument for the domestic violence act. I am happy to announce that it has been finalized and we have the validation, the subsidiary legislation committee of parliament have looked at it and the Attorney General has submitted her final comments… Just yesterday [Monday], I signed off a letter to Attorney General so hopefully by July it should be passed by parliament so that is done.”
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By Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana