HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s government yesterday lost an appeal against a landmark ruling which struck down a law saying gay men under the age of 21 should be jailed for life for acts of sodomy.
The three judges at the Court of Appeal unanimously upheld a ruling issued last year that a higher age of consent for homosexuals than for heterosexuals and lesbians was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Heterosexuals and lesbians face a maximum of five years in jail if they have sex before the age of 16, but homosexuals who have sex before they are 21 risk life in prison.
“I fail to see on any basis the justification of this age limit,” Chief High Court Judge Geoffrey Ma wrote in his judgement.
“No evidence has been placed before us to explain why the minimum age requirement for buggery is 21 whereas as far as sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is concerned, the age of consent is only 16,” he said.
Ma said the current law “does not justify in any way” life imprisonment and added that there was sufficient cause for a judicial review of the law.
The case was originally brought by 21-year-old homosexual William Roy Leung. On holiday in Japan, he hailed the decision in a city that only decriminalised homosexuality in 1991.
“This is a victory not only for me and the gay community in Hong Kong, it is a victory for all of us in Hong Kong, gay and straight alike who all have fundamental human rights that the courts here have shown us they are prepared to uphold,” he said in a statement read out by his lawyer Michael Vidler.
Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines all have equal ages of consent.
He said the judgement means the law, as it applied to gay sex, was unenforceable.
Law Yuk-kai, director of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, welcomed the judgement.
He said: “Such discrimination is unjustifiable. It’s very clear that, in accordance with international jurisdiction, it is an intrusion of privacy and discriminatory. The current law is disrespectful to people’s privacy and should be removed.”–AFP |
