Deputy Minority leader, Dominic Nitiwul has revealed that should parliament pass the Property Rights of Spouse Bill, 2013 that seeks to legitimize cohabitation, not only will women who cohabitate enjoy, but men who perch with women will also be covered by the law.
Mr Nitiwul stressed that it is not only women who were cohabiting but there are some men who are also �perching� with women hence the law could also protect men.
The deputy minority leader was reacting to concerns by the majority chief whip in parliament, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak that colleague Members of Parliament should not pass any bill that will seek to legitimize cohabitation because it is not part of the Ghanaian culture.
Alhaji Mubarak said Parliament should not �legitimize the illegitimate� because it is �illegal in our culture� and therefore charged his colleagues to scrutinize the bills before the House before passing them into law.
The Majority Chief Whip said this yesterday during his contribution to the debate on the report of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs on the Intestate Succession Bill, 2013.
He further explained cohabitation to be an agreement between a man and a woman to live together without the blessing of a pastor, Imam or the family hence it is �illegal� in the Ghanaian culture which should not be legalized.
Clause three of the Property Rights of Spouse Bill �recognizes persons who live together as husband and wife without formal ceremony, normally referred to as cohabitees.
�This concept includes a situation where customary marriage rites have commenced but have not been completed. This is in recognition of the fact that these persons may make contributions towards the acquisition of joint property during that relationship and should not lose their property rights merely because they have not completed or formalized their union.�
But, according to him, cohabiting for a period of time could not warrant a woman to own part of a man's property upon termination of the relationship.
But, according to the report of the committee on intestate succession bill, before the passage of the PNDC law 111, the customary law concept provided very little protection for surviving children and spouse, particularly wives.
The report said the PNDC law 111 was passed to address those challenges but �the growing importance of the nuclear family has brought in its wake, issues of moral justice, one being that, a surviving spouse has to be adequately compensated for the services rendered the deceased spouse and the task of taking care of the children.�
According to the report, the bill seeks to make the intestate succession regime more responsive to the needs of the immediate family of persons who die intestate and also provide a uniform intestate succession that will be applied throughout the country irrespective of the inheritance system of the intestate and the type of marriage contracted.
The committee observed that the responsibility to be shouldered by spouses and children of the deceased and therefore the need to have greater shares especially, where the deceased is survived by no parent.
In addition, the committee observed that the bill makes provision for the property rights of spouses of the deceased especially, where the surviving spouse contributed towards the acquisition of the property.
The committee also said, to deter family members from ejecting surviving spouse from the matrimonial home, the punishment of 500 penalty units in the bill should be increased to penalty units of 1,000 with its corresponding prison term to make it punitive enough.
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