Referendum and discrimination

This government has done some strange things since coming into office, but there can be few more bizarre than its most recent proposal to put to referendum whether or not a minority group should continue to be discriminated against in law. Either such a group is entitled to human rights in international law or they are not, and if they are – and it is unquestionably the case that they are ‒ what is the government doing asking the populace for an opinion on the matter? Its duty in such circumstances is to bring the country into line with all the human rights conventions to which we are signatory, and, it might be added, that we are expected to comply with under the provisions of our own constitution.

What is at issue at this stage is the decriminalization of “buggery”, as it is called in our statutes, which would allow consenting adult males to engage in same-sex intimacy. This is not the first time the matter has been raised: the constitutional reformers around 2000 had added the sexual orientation of a person to the list of those who could not be treated in a discriminatory manner and who should not be subject to any law which was discriminatory. It might have passed quietly, had not someone drawn it clumsily to public attention, resulting in the PPP/C, with its eye on the 2001 election, withdrawing its support for the amendment in question. While that amendment, desirable in its own right, would not, in and of itself, have nullified the “buggery” law, it is unlikely the latter would have survived any legal challenge thereafter.

As we reported on Thursday, the previous government at the UN Human Rights Committee’s Universal Period Review in Geneva, Switzerland in 2010, committed to holding consultations on decriminalizing samesex relations, but despite a motion to hold these being passed in the National Assembly in 2012, this was still not done. The matter was raised again under the last government, when MP Juan Edghill, who became notorious for confusing his role as a churchman with his political responsibilities, spoke out forcefully against making homosexuality legal between consenting adults. Since he was not directly contradicted, it was as if he was speaking for the government.

As for Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, he said at the time that the country was not ready for same-sex marriage, which is exactly what he said again last week, viz “I don’t think the country, based on what our consultations show, is ready for same sex marriage, frankly speaking.” This is a red herring, of course, since the issue is not about same-sex marriage, but decriminalizing same-sex intimate relations. One can only conclude