Supreme Court strikes down sodomy law
After years of struggle by Caleb Orozco, the court strikes down the colonial sodomy ban.
On 10 August 2016, the Supreme Court of Belize declared the colonial-era ban on same-sex sexual acts unconstitutional. In the case of Caleb Orozco v. the Attorney General of Belize, Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin ruled that Section 53 of the Criminal Code violated the constitutionally guaranteed rights to human dignity, privacy, equality before the law and protection from discrimination.
Section 53 dated from the British colonial era and criminalised "carnal intercourse against the order of nature", with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. Convictions were rare, but in many places the law served to legitimise social and institutional discrimination against queer people.
Caleb Orozco, executive director of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM), had brought the case back in 2010. He was supported by the Human Dignity Trust, the International Commission of Jurists and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, among others; the Catholic Church in Belize and US organisations took the opposing side. After the ruling, UNIBAM president Simone Hill spoke of a victory for the human rights of all citizens of Belize.
In the judgment, Chief Justice Benjamin also broadened the interpretation of the term "sex" in the Constitution of Belize to include sexual orientation. The government under Prime Minister Dean Barrow decided not to appeal.
Belize thus became the first country in the English-speaking Caribbean whose highest court declared such a ban unconstitutional. The Bahamian parliament had already decriminalised consensual same-sex acts in 1991, but by legislation rather than through the courts. Activists hoped the Belize ruling would favour similar proceedings in Jamaica and other countries of the English-speaking Caribbean.