St Lu­cia’s High Court has struck down colo­nial-era laws crim­i­nal­is­ing bug­gery and gross in­de­cen­cy, de­clar­ing them un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and in­com­pat­i­ble with mod­ern de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues.

In a rul­ing de­liv­ered by Jus­tice Fran­cis H. In­no­cent, the court found that Sec­tions 132 and 133 of the Crim­i­nal Code vi­o­lat­ed rights pro­tect­ed un­der St Lu­cia’s Con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing pri­va­cy, lib­er­ty, se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son, free­dom of ex­pres­sion, and pro­tec­tion from dis­crim­i­na­tion—in­ter­pret­ed to in­clude sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

The East­ern Caribbean Al­liance for Di­ver­si­ty and Equal­i­ty (ECADE), which led the re­gion­al le­gal chal­lenge, de­scribed the de­ci­sion as his­toric. Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Keni­ta Placide said the rul­ing was “deeply per­son­al” and a long-over­due af­fir­ma­tion of the hu­man­i­ty and rights of LGBTQ+ St Lu­cians.