In search of progress: the implications of Caleb Orozco v. AG of Belize for the Commonwealth Caribbean

Abstract

ABSTRACTHomosexual conduct and buggery among consenting adults remain serious criminal offences in all the independent Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdictions except the Bahamas. The Belize Supreme Court in the case of Caleb Orozco et al. v. AG of Belize became the first Commonwealth Caribbean Court to hold that laws that criminalised inter alia same-sex intimacy were unconstitutional. The Chief Justice relying on international human rights jurisprudence ruled that section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code, which provides ‘[e]very person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for ten years’, in so far as it applies to adult homosexual men for homosexual acts in private, breaches the rights to human dignity, privacy, freedom of expression, equality before the law and the right to non-discrimination. The judgment was hailed by local and regional Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) and human rights organisations as a huge progressive leap and has raised hope and questions of its possible application to the other Commonwealth Caribbean countries. This article will explore the application of the case to the other Commonwealth Caribbean countries and discuss the constitutional hurdles that exist for similar legal challenges to these laws throughout the remainder of those jurisdictions.