Mauritius Supreme Court Rules Sodomy Criminalisation as Unconstitutional

In a ruling that has many jubilating but that has shocked even more on the traditionally prude Mauritius, five members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community emerged victorious in the island’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.

In a preliminary verdict delivered by Judges David Chan Kan Cheong and Karuna Devi Gunesh-Balaghee, they declared that Article 250(1) of the Penal Code, which seeks to criminalise sodomy, is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

This is, according to them, it prohibits consensual acts of sodomy between consenting adult males.

The case was brought before the Court by Ridwan Ah Seek of the LGBT Group Collectif-Arc-en-Ciel against the State.

The judges reached the same conclusions in another similar case brought by four other members of the LGBT community.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) teamed up with other United Nations agencies to welcome the decision “to decriminalize same sex relations in Mauritius”.

Source: Defi Media