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Saint Vincent and the Grenadine’s Excessive Court docket upheld legal guidelines criminalizing homosexual intercourse on Friday, met with disappointment and criticism from LGBTQ+ activists. The ruling was delivered by Justice Esco Henry, who discovered that the legal guidelines are “moderately required” to guard public well being and morality, significantly the nation’s HIV charges.
In gentle of the nation’s “restricted assets,” Henry discovered that the provisions have been “almost definitely the least drastic means to realize” the purpose of decreasing HIV charges as a lot as attainable. She additionally discovered that they don’t infringe on the Structure. Henry continued, “[T]o my thoughts, the considered a public well being disaster occasioned by an unstemmed deluge of latest HIV circumstances, is an actual and severe concern which moderately justifies a public well being response of the sort embedded within the challenged provisions.”
The ruling upheld sections 146 of the Legal Code 1988, which prohibits anal intercourse with a sentence of as much as 10 years. The ruling additionally upheld part 148 of the identical code, criminalizing public or non-public same-sex indecent practices. The sections have been challenged in a 2019 Excessive Court docket case looking for constitutional redress of the colonial-era legal guidelines, introduced by Javin Kevin Vinc Johnson and Sean Macleish. Each claimed they have been compelled to go away the nation as they freely recognized as homosexual. The problem was unsuccessful, and their claims have been rejected. The boys have been ordered to pay EC$$7,500 (about £2,200) to the lawyer common.
A July 2023 Human Rights Watch report discovered that violence and discrimination towards LGBTQ+ folks within the nation, though hardly ever prosecuted, inspired a tradition of intolerance in direction of queer folks. It additionally famous that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a signatory of the Worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits LGBTQ+ discrimination, which means the nation’s continued dedication to those legal guidelines is opposite to its worldwide obligations.
5 different English-speaking Caribbean nations additionally criminalize homosexual intercourse: Lucia; Dominica; Jamaica; Guyana and Grenada. Different Caribbean nations have lately repealed related legal guidelines: Antigua and Barbuda (2022); Saint Kitts and Nevis (2022); Barbados (2022) and Trinidad and Tobago (2018).
There was a lot worldwide concern concerning the therapy LGBTQ+ folks in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in addition to in different Caribbean international locations.
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