Human Rights Group ‘Disappointed’ After Court Dismisses Challenges To SVG Buggery Laws

Equal Rights, Access and Opportunities SVG Inc. (“ERAO SVG”) is disappointed that the consolidated cases of Vincentians Javin Kevin Vinc Johnson v The Attorney General of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines et al and Sean Mac Leish v The Attorney General of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines et al were unsuccessful in the High Court of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Filed in 2019, these cases challenged sections 146 and 148 of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Criminal Code (“Criminal Code”), titled “Buggery” and “Indecent practices between persons of the same sex” respectively. Upon delivering the oral decision on the 16th of February 2024, Her Ladyship Justice Esco Lorene Henry dismissed both cases in their entirety. This decision breaks recent trends in independent anglophone Caribbean countries where laws criminalizing private consensual same-sex relations between adults have been declared unconstitutional. To date, independent anglophone Caribbean countries where laws criminalizing private consensual same-sex relations between adults have been declared unconstitutional are Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Barbados. Currently, apart from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, laws criminalizing private consensual same-sex relations between adults still exist in Jamaica, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Guyana. Reflecting on...