Parliament has held stakeholder engagement on the Property Rights of Spouses Bill, 2024.
The object of the Bill is to regulate the property rights of spouses in accordance with article 22 of the 1992 Constitution and for related matters.
The stakeholder engagement is to allow the interested parties to make the necessary amendments to the Bill.
Hon. Elizabeth Ofosu–Adjare, MP for Techiman North, Hon. Patricia Appiagyei MP for Asokwa, Hon. Gizella Tetteh-Agbotsui MP for Awutu-Senya West led the engagement.
Also in attendance were lawyers from the Academia and Civil Society Organisations.
Meanwhile, a Private Legal Practitioner and Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law, Mr. Courage Asabagna, has made a clarion call on Parliament to take immediate steps to enact an Act regulating the property rights of spouses, particularly regarding the distribution of property acquired during the subsistence of marriage upon dissolution of the marriage. This, according to him, would particularly help spouses in polygamous marriages.
According to him, the distribution of property between spouses on the dissolution of a marriage has become a difficult activity for the parties involved and the courts, especially in the context of polygamous marriages.
“It is crucial for Parliament to enact into law an Act that directs the distribution of property among spouses going through a divorce or separation. Having such an Act in place would clearly stipulate how property should be distributed taking into consideration the marriage type either polygamy or monogamy, customs, traditions, values and how the means through which a party contributed to attaining the said property either by financial contribution from one or both parties or by means of contributions that suggest joint acquisition”, he said.
Parliament, according to the Law Lecturer, has the constitutional mandate to enact legislation regulating spousal property, and should therefore fulfil its constitutional duty by drawing from judicial pronouncements on the matter of distribution of spousal property and current societal norms and ethos to ensure equitable distribution of wealth in such situations.
He noted that in the absence of such a law, the courts and judicial activists have gone miles ahead to draw some guidelines regarding the distribution of property acquired during the subsistence of a marriage upon dissolution.
He further said that, although these measures put in place by the courts help address the situation of property distribution among spouses and have become a pivotal component of the current Spousal Property regime, they seem to favour only spouses in monogamous marriages, leaving out parties in polygamous marriages. This, he maintained, requires Parliament to act swiftly in fulfillment of its constitutional duty, taking into account the intricacies of marital unions in Ghana.
“An Act will take into consideration our values, traditions and types of marriages in use by the courts in distributing spousal property, parties in polygamous marriages would fully benefit from the property distribution process. The current measures being used by the courts are only focused on parties in monogamous marriages, leaving out those in the polygamous setting”, he admitted.
