Is Uganda's anti-gay legislation being gutted?
There is some reason to believe that that the Ugandan government has quietly moved to kill the notorious "anti-gay" legislation that we've covered here on the Lead through the past year.
"A committee of Cabinet has made recommendations that could end Ndorwa West MP David Bahati’s proposal to have a separate law punishing homosexuality in Uganda. The recommendations, which Saturday Monitor has seen, come close to dismissing Mr Bahati’s draft legislation.
The committee, put together to advise the government after Mr Bahati’s draft legislation left Uganda condemned by sections of the international community, looked deep into the language, tone and relevance of the draft legislation, dissecting every clause to determine its usefulness.
It was not clear who wrote the draft legislation, the committee’s report says, noting that the document had ‘technical defects in form and content’. The result left the draft legislation almost bare, as nearly all of the clauses were found either redundant, repetitive of existing laws, or even useless. In fact, the committee found that only ‘Clause 13’ of the draft legislation, about the promotion of homosexuality, had some merit.
…‘The Anti-Homosexuality Bill should be reviewed since some provisions of the Constitution were not followed in the process of drafting and that, therefore, it was illegally before Parliament,’ the report says, adding that ‘some sections of the Penal Code Act could be amended to include some good provisions’ of the draft law. This kind of amendment, the committee’s report says, is the preferable option."
Full article here.
"Box Turtle" has looked at this report in the context of other reports coming out of Uganda right now and is cautiously optimistic about the movement this development represents.
Jim Burroway, in his analysis on Box Turtle of the law, points out that the continued presence of "Clause 13" is concerning however and may represent the language that broadly outlaws the "promotion of homosexuality". The language is so vague as to possibly preclude something such as teaching young people safe-sex practices.
Beware those corrections and bits and pieces tucked into existing law. The new product could be as bad as the old and more difficult to root out.
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May 8, 2010 9:20 AM