Non-passage of Property Rights of Spouses Bill whittling away gains from Mensah v Mensah - Justice Dotse

A Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana, Justice Jones Dotse has bemoaned the non-passage of the Property Rights of Spouses Bill by parliament.

According to him, this situation has led the courts to make their own rules thus leading to the whittling away of the gains from Mensah v Mensah.

The Property Rights of Spouses Bill is to regulate the property rights of spouses in accordance with article 22 of the Constitution, particularly clauses (2) and (3).

Article 22 (3) requires spouses to have equal access to property jointly acquired during the marriage and for matrimonial property to be equitably distributed between the spouses upon the termination of the marriage.

The Property Rights of Spouses Bill will seek to ensure that once a property is acquired during a marriage, there’s a presumption – unless a contrary express view is expressed – that the property belongs to husband and wife and, therefore, one of them cannot sell the property, exchange it, mortgage it, lease it, transfer it, or try to use it to enter into any contract, etc. without the written consent of the other spouse.

Speaking as a representative of the Chief Justice at the launch of the Law Reform Commission Fund and the Legal Aid Fund at the High Court Complex Auditorium in Accra on August 10, 2022, Justice Dotse thus appealed to Parliament to intervene in order to prevent the Property Rights of Spouses from becoming a mirage.

“Unless parliament intervenes, property rights of spouses will become a mirage.”

Also present at the launch was the president of the Republic, Nana Akufo-Addo, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Justices of the Superior Courts of Ghana, etc.