Uganda’s Constitutional Court Wednesday rejected a petition seeking to annul the nation’s stringent anti-LGBTQ legislation that led the World Bank to suspend funding.
The judgment was delivered at a hearing on Wednesday in the capital, Kampala.
“The ruling is disappointing,” Nicholas Opiyo, one of the lawyers for the petitioners, said in an interview outside the court. Lawyers will read the detailed judgment and consult their clients with a view to appealing the decision at the Supreme Court, he said.
The law enacted last year penalizes people for offenses including promoting and facilitating same-sex relations, with punishments including life sentences and even death for so-called “aggravated homosexuality.”
The World Bank suspended new loans to Uganda over the legislation, while the US issued an advisory cautioning private investors about business and reputation risks of operating in the country. It also excluded Uganda from the preferential African Growth and Opportunity Act trade deal.
The outcry against the law triggered a slide in the Ugandan shilling and prompted the central bank to raise interest rates at an emergency meeting last month.
