Asking people to organize weddings at home is illegal – Lawyer to government

A private legal practitioner, Sylvester Assan says asking people to organize weddings at home will be promoting illegal marriages.

This comes after the Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, stated that churches will not be allowed to host marriage ceremonies to curb the spread of COVID-19 despite still being able to hold services.

In an interview with the media, Dr. Nsiah-Asare said marriage ceremonies could be held in homes with a maximum of 25 persons.

“We are not saying you can’t have marriages. You can go to the house of your family or the girl’s family and then get married. Make sure you don’t have a large crowd there to cause any problems for us, and you follow the protocols.”

But according to Mr. Assan, the wedding ban should be imposed properly because weddings cannot be organized in the privacy of a home.

Mr. Assan stated in an interview that, “This is purely about the law. It is fatally wrong and preposterous to say that you can have your marriage at home and I want to say that to celebrate marriages and weddings at home, if that is customary or traditional marriage at home then there is no problem with that but if that marriage is to be done under the ordinance or what people call church marriage or under the marriage officers certificate, then that marriage cannot be done at home.”

“You cannot ask the bishop or the head of the church to come and celebrate a marriage in your house, it cannot happen under the Act because your home is not licensed to celebrate a marriage,” he added.

Source: Happy 98.9FM/ghanaweb