June 21. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The High Court of Namibia has ruled that laws inherited from the colonial era that criminalize relationships between people of the same sex are unconstitutional, which will imply the disappearance of “sodomy” and “unnatural offenses” as potential crimes.
The court has ruled in favor of an LGTBI activist, Friedel Dausab, and has understood that breaking up by law the relationships that homosexual people may have is equivalent to discrimination and, therefore, goes against the Constitution of the African country, the newspaper reports. ‘The Namibian’.
The judges consider that perceiving homosexuality as “an abominable vice” also implies prejudice, despite the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office opposed the plaintiff’s claim and demanded on behalf of the Government the maintenance of the current laws, under the argument that there is no majority social positioning among the population.
The Prosecutor’s Office also argued that sexual orientation could not be considered a specific category enshrined in the Constitution under the premise of equality and non-discrimination.
Amnesty International has celebrated on social networks what it considers “a victory for love, equality and Human Rights” in a country that already experienced another milestone in 2023 when the Supreme Court ordered recognition of homosexual marriages celebrated abroad, despite that these types of unions remain illegal in Namibia.
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