Property Rights in Marriage Bill in the offing

A bill that seeks to address the nagging question of who owns what property in marriages would soon be presented to Parliament. Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, told the house that the Attorney General's Department was preparing the first draft.

The leader who was answering questions in the House on Tuesday said the bill would streamline the law on property rights of spouses by providing a uniform method of dealing with such matters within the range of cultural and religious practices of the country.

Papa Owusu-Ankomah said the draft was being informed by proposals from the Law Reform Commission, NGOs as well as papers prepared by Prof. Akua Kuenyehia, Dean of the Law Faculty, University of Ghana, on the subject. "The complexity of the subject is compounded by the various issues needed to be taken into account in order to achieve equality and equity between the spouses."

He said some of the pertinent issues the bill would address include, whether all properties, movable and immovable should be distributed among spouses upon separation, the formula for distribution and its basis, the proportions for non-working spouses and whether spouses should distribute property between themselves when they were still living together.

Also to be considered is the issue of appropriate forum for the distribution of properties and whether the extended family of both spouses could be said to have any share in the self-acquired property of the spouses.