MAKING YOUR LAST WISHES COUNT

Do you know that your wife and children do not have any control over your body after your

death? Under Ghanaian law, death shows the extent of authority the extended family welds over

the individual.

In Ghana, the law allows you unfettered power to dispose of your self-acquired properties

through a testamentary will. There is no moral obligation to leave a specified portion of your

estate to your wife and children. However, this freedom generally does not include the power to

decide what happens to your body after death. It also does not include the power to determine

how and where you should be buried. Even though a corpse is not property, the law considers it

an object, which belongs to the extended family, not the spouse or children for purposes of

burial.

The issue of who has the final say when it comes to the burial of a loved one has been a

a constant source of contention between the nuclear and extended families in Ghana. Upon the

death of a loved one, members of the nuclear family wake up to the rude shock that they had to

defer to the extended family to make a decision on when, where, and how to bury their loved

one irrespective of whether the deceased person visited or established roots in his or her

hometown.

The Courts have confirmed that the spouse and children have no control over a deceased

family member, which vests in the extended family who has the responsibility of giving the

deceased a befitting burial to commensurate with his or her status in life.

The situation is more pronounced within the matrilineal communities because the spouse and

children of the deceased are not considered members of the extended family and for that

reason do not have any say in the decision-making for the final funeral rites or control of the

body. When the deceased is from the patrilineal community where inheritance is determined

through the male line, children are considered part of the extended family and an integral part of

the decision-making for the final funeral rites.

You can minimize the interference from your extended family by consulting an Estate Planning

Lawyer. The lawyer can help you plan your estate and advise you on how to navigate through

the complex family dynamics that play out during these difficult times. Memorandum of wishes

and other legal tools can generally be used to circumvent the customary rules to ensure your

family has full access to your body to carry out your last wishes. Even though it is okay to

include your wishes concerning your body in your Will, it will not serve the needed purpose

because a Will most likely will be read after the burial. Therefore, in addition to a Will, you need

a Memorandum of wishes, designed to be read immediately after your death to your family but

before your burial.