Caribbean court strikes down ban on “abominable crime of buggery”

Port Zante in Basseterre town, St. Kitts And Nevis
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In a major advance for LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean, a court for Saint Kitts and Nevis struck down a colonial-era law that banned the “abominable” crime of “buggery”.

The Offenses Against the Person Act, imported from England with the colonization of the island nation, criminalized “unnatural offenses” and carried a maximum penalty of 10 years with hard labor.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court struck down two offending sections of the act.

One read: “Any person who is convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding ten years, with or without hard labor.”

Former British colonies Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines retain similar laws.

Judge Trevor Ward wrote in the decision: “The absolute nature of the prohibition created by sections 56 and 57 are not reasonably justified in a democratic society in circumstances where they proscribe sexual acts between consenting adults in private, which involve no element of public conduct or harm to, or sexual acts, with minors.”

“To the extent that it criminalizes the private lives of gay persons in this year, the law is excessive and arbitrary.”

The court’s verdict was…

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