Belize court upholds finding that LGBT people are protected by non-discrimination laws

 | 
12/30/2019

The Court of Appeal has today delivered a judgment denying the Belize Government’s appeal of a 2016 ruling decriminalising adult consensual same-sex relations. The three-judge bench reaffirmed the decision of the Chief Justice in 2016 that Section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code – which criminalised ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ and disproportionately discriminated against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Belize – contravened the constitutional rights to dignity, equality before the law, privacy, freedom of expression and non-discrimination on the grounds of sex, and was therefore void. Importantly, Justice Samuel Lungole-Awich stated unequivocally in today’s judgment that the Constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination includes sexual orientation discrimination.

Share this:

Latest Global News

Added on: 07/26/2024
07/25/2024
Ghana’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a six-decade-old law criminalizing gay sex as the west African country awaits another court decision on whether to …
Added on: 07/26/2024
07/25/2024
The Government of Namibia has chosen the wrong side of history by challenging the recent High Court ruling that declared the country’s apartheid-era ban …
Added on: 07/26/2024
07/25/2024
It’s hard to believe it was little over a year ago. Just 12 months ago, the best women’s soccer teams from across the globe …

Explore LGBTQ+ Issues

Added on: 07/24/2024
In June, the LGBT+ association Kap Caraïbe in the French Caribbean island of Martinique had to cancel many of the events it planned as …
Added on: 07/20/2024
The global push to recognize the rights of LGBTQ couples continued in separate parts of the world this month when the Dutch Supreme Court …
Added on: 07/06/2024
Hand in hand, Andrea and Fiorella attend an improvised mass in the garage of a house in San Salvador. There they say they don’t …