I never called for decriminalization of homosexuality- New CHRAJ Bossback

The newly appointed head of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Lauretta Lamptey has discounted reports that she has advocated the decriminalization of homosexuality saying she was “misquoted and therefore misrepresented”.

The first day she took up her appointment, myjoyonline.com reported Ms Lamptey as advocating the decriminalization of homosexuality.

The report quoted her as saying that homosexuals have rights under the law and does not believe their activities should be criminalized.
However, she has discounted this report.

“I did not advocate that homosexuality should be decriminalized. My view is that, it currently isn’t clear whether it is even criminal and that if the view of the society is that it should be then, there should be a debate about that”, Lauretta Lamptey who was appointed by President Mills following the retirement of the acting Commissioner Anna Bossman, said this in an interview with Xfm 95.1 in her office.

According to her, opinions she had given on the issue of homosexuality were only on the basis that there has been constant debates on the criminalization of their activities, stressing that the only way homosexuals can be criminalized is to have it explicitly captured in the law.

She added that (CHRAJ) as a constitutional institution will not fight for the rights of homosexuals if the +law captures their activities to be criminal adding “in my view I don’t think as a society we are ready to give homosexuals, lesbians the whole category of people any of those kind of rights”.

“I think we have religious, moral, traditional and many barriers to that and I don’t think we have to simply copy the Western world on everything because someone can say, ‘this is the high point, this is where you should be in terms of human rights of individuals. I think we should be where our country should be”.

“However the main point that I wanted to make is that the debate has been about rights and that I think the real issue is the legal side of things and that it doesn’t make sense to me. There is some illogic in arguing for increase rights for homosexuals and at the same time saying that by law homosexuality is a criminal offence.

How can we say it is criminal and then you want (CHRAJ) to go and protect the very activity that is criminal”?

Touching on the issue of corruption, Ms Lamptey said she agrees with the President calling on people to provide enough evidence before one is accused of corruption stressing that, CHRAJ will under no circumstance rush in investigating issues concerning corruption before prosecuting but said such issues would be properly investigated before actions are taken.

Story by Esther Ohenewaa Brown/ Xfm 95.1/ Accra/ Ghana