Ugandas forfatningsdomstol forkastede – af forfatningstekniske årsager – for nylig loven, der skruede op for straffen for ”homoseksuel aktivitet”. Men flere arbejder på at få loven til afstemning igen og i mellemtiden fungerer den eksisterende anti-homo-lov.
KAMPALA, 14 August 2014 (IRIN): The law led to increased repression, drew international condemnation and prompted foreign donors to suspend millions of dollars in aid. Then earlier this month the constitutional court threw it out. But is Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), promulgated (stadfæstet) by President Yoweri Museveni in February, truly dead and buried?
Under the AHA persons found guilty of “homosexual acts” faced jail terms of up to 14 years, and life sentences in “aggravated” cases, such as those committed by an HIV-positive person, or those involving minors, the disabled and serial offenders. The law also prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality.
What happened at the constitutional court?
Following a petition by human rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGTB) activists, on 1 August, the court’s five judges declared the AHA “null and void” on the grounds that Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga had put the bill to a vote – on 20 December 2013 – without the requisite quorum (a third of all MPs).
At the time, the absence of a quorum had been pointed out by Prime Minister Amama Ababazi and others, but Kadaga reportedly ignored their objections.
Activists welcomed the ruling. The AHA “can no longer be enforced in Uganda. We expect no more discrimination against the LGBT community in Uganda,” Caleb Alaka, one of the lawyers who challenged the law, told IRIN.
“The ruling by the judges is a step in the right direction in the enjoyment of fundamental human rights of LGBT in Uganda,” Dennis Odwe, executive director of the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA), told IRIN.
“The implication of this nullification means that health rights will be enjoyed by all the LGBTs and it will increase more donors’ support to the health sector to ensure that vulnerable groups have access to quality health services like any other persons in Uganda,” he added, with perhaps undue optimism (see below).
So is it game over for the AHA?
No. Uganda’s attorney-general has filed a motion to appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court, saying he was “dissatisfied with the whole judgement”.
The precise grounds for the appeal have not been specified but they could focus on the Constitutional Court judges’ view that the state had an obligation to prove that there had indeed been a quorum on 20 December, and that the petitioners had no obligation to prove there had not been one.
Meanwhile, champions of the AHA plan to retable it in parliament and to fast-track it once plenary sessions resume. Some 215 of Uganda’s 375 MPs have signed a petition to support the AHA’s reintroduction.
“I have already surpassed the quorum requirement [with the petition signatories] but many more are promising to sign up. I am confident we shall have the bill retabled and passed into law overwhelmingly,” said MP Latif Ssebaggala who is leading the campaign to keep the law alive.
David Bahati, the MP who drafted the AHA, told IRIN: “I am not shaken by the court ruling. The ruling is no victory at all. The morals of the people of Uganda will prevail. This is just a procedural matter. It has nothing to do with our fight against the promotion of homosexuality in Uganda…
“We can’t allow and accept the promotion of homosexuality among our children, recruitment of our children into homosexual acts and encouraging the same sex marriage,” he said.
So is it now legal to be gay in Uganda?
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