Ghana’s Supreme Court has upheld the West African country’s longstanding law criminalising homosexuality, rejecting arguments that the practice should be legalised due to international trends. 

In a unanimous decision, the apex court firmly stated that Ghana's legal system is rooted in the nation's values and cultural norms, which do not support the legalisation of homosexuality or other forms of so-called unnatural carnal knowledge, reports Daily Graphic.

The ruling, delivered by a seven-member panel, was a decisive response to a suit brought by a plaintiff Prince Obiri-Korang, who challenged the constitutionality of Section 104(1)(b) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29). 

The plaintiff argued that the law discriminated against homosexuals and violated the constitutional rights to privacy and liberty. However, the court found these arguments unpersuasive, noting that they were largely based on foreign legal precedents that do not align with Ghanaian law.

“The law’s utility thus becomes waste if it is just the transportation of alien cultural values and ideas which have no foundation at all within the peculiar social factors in our legal system,” the court declared in its ruling, authored by Justice Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu.

Section 104(1)(b) of the Criminal Offences Act criminalises unnatural carnal knowledge, defined by the court as any form of sexual intercourse that does not involve “penetration with a penis into a woman’s vagina.” The court clarified that this definition includes acts such as sodomy and bestiality, both of which remain crimes under Ghanaian law, writes the Daily Graphic.