May 17. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Supreme Court of Namibia has ruled that same-sex marriages celebrated abroad must be recognized by the Government, a historic ruling that, however, does not affect the ban on homosexual relations in the African country.
The Supreme Court has indicated that the refusal of the Namibian Ministry of the Interior to recognize this type of marriage violates the constitutional rights to equality and dignity of the people affected, after separate cases of marriages in South Africa and Germany.
Likewise, it has stressed that the member of the couple who does not have Namibian nationality must be recognized as the husband or wife of the Namibian citizen, in line with the Migration Control Law, with which they would have the same residence rights as the members of marriages between people of different sex, as reported by the local newspaper ‘The Namibian’.
The Namibia Equal Rights Movement organization has applauded the ruling on its account on the social network Twitter and has stressed that “love wins”. “Thank you to the Digashu and Sieller-Lilles families. Your strength in this fight has changed this nation for future generations of queer Namibians,” he stressed.
The Namibian Justice ruled in October 2021 in favor of granting citizenship to the daughter of a homosexual couple born in March 2019 in South Africa through a surrogate. Although homosexuality remains illegal in Namibia under archaic 1927 anti-sodomy legislation, it is rarely enforced.
