The Constitutional Court of Uganda on Wednesday rejected an appeal to annul the controversial law passed last May that aggravates discrimination against people from the LGBTI population (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex), but recognized that it violates some rights.
“We refuse to annul the Anti-Homosexuality Law 2023 in its entirety, nor do we grant a permanent injunction against its application,” said Judge Richard Buteera when reading the sentence on behalf of the five justices who made up the Court.
The court repealed, however, several sections of the rule considering that They violate the rights to health, privacy and religious freedom of LGBTI people, guaranteed in the Ugandan Constitution and in several international treaties.
In this sense, he stated that “the obligation to report (LGBTI people) according to article 14 (of the law) would effectively have a paralyzing deterrent effect on access to health care by homosexual patients.”
Specifically, the magistrates admitted that The norm “perpetuates” the vulnerability to mental health problems of members of this population, especially people living with HIV.
Despite these concessions, the magistrates highlighted that the law “seeks to reflect the social sentiment (of Ugandans) regarding the issue of homosexuality” and recalled that the Magna Carta obliges the Ugandan State to “promote and preserve those cultural values and practices.” “.
The Court considered that the norm does not violate the rights to equality and freedom from discrimination and noted that the limitations imposed on freedom of expression, thought and assembly are justified and “are not so severe as to undermine the delicate balance between individual and social interests”.
“The result of our ruling is that this petition substantially fails,” the judges concluded.
The law was appealed by a parliamentarian and Ugandan activist Frank Mugisha, among others, who can now file another appeal before the country's Supreme Court.
Despite the court's decision, the truth is that Ugandan civil society organizations have denounced the increase in abuses against LGBTI people in the country as a result of the debates in Parliament and the approval of the law.
Thus, the consortium of local NGOs Strategic Response Team (SRT) claimed last September to have documented more than 300 abuses committed by both state and non-state actors against members of this group during that period.
LGBTI Ugandans face evictions, dismissals, beatings and other forms of discrimination, activists lament.
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, approved this harsh law against homosexuality last May that increases repression against LGBTI people, after months of discussions in Parliament.
The legal text includes long prison sentences and punishes “aggravated homosexuality” with the death penalty, a broad term used to refer to maintaining intimate relations with a minor or other vulnerable groups.
NYT: Uganda passed one of the strongest anti-LGBTQ laws in the world in 2023. The skyline of Kampala, the capital.
Photo:
Human rights organizations, the United Nations, the European Union and the United States have harshly criticized the normwhile, after its approval, the World Bank announced that it will not allocate new funds to the African country.
The Ugandan law, one of the harshest in the world, is part of a recent escalation of anti-LGBTI discourse in Africa, where more than thirty of the at least 65 countries that criminalize relations between people of the same sex in the country are located. world.
#Uganda #Court #block #antiLGBTI #law #recognizes #violation #rights
