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

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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.

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