Namibia grants legal status to certain same-sex marriages
Namibia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday granted legal recognition to same-sex marriages concluded abroad between Namibian citizens and foreign spouses. The move overturns a previous High Court ruling that refused to accept such unions.
Two Namibian citizens took legal action when the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration declined to issue permits to their same-sex foreign partners. The couples, Daniel Digashu and Johan Potgieter, and Anette and Anita Seiler-Lilles, who married in South Africa and Germany respectively, had argued that the term “spouse” in Namibian immigration law should be inclusive of same-sex couples or be declared unconstitutional.
The High Court, however, ruled against them last year. While the judge presiding over the case agreed with their argument, she stated that she was bound by Namibia’s prohibition of same-sex relations and that “only the Supreme Court can correct” the situation.
However, local media reported on Tuesday that the Supreme Court declared that same-sex marriages between the two gay couples must be acknowledged in Namibia, with the non-Namibian partners recognized as spouses under the Immigration Control Act.
The court emphasized that the Ministry of Home Affairs’ refusal to acknowledge these marriages violates constitutional rights to equality and dignity.
“This court accordingly found that the approach of the ministry to exclude spouses, including the appellants, in a validly concluded same-sex marriage... infringes both the interrelated rights to dignity and equality of the appellants,” the ruling said, as reported by AFP.
The decision also grants non-Namibian spouses in same-sex marriages the same residency rights in Namibia as heterosexual couples.
In March, the Supreme Court of Namibia overturned a lower court’s decision to grant citizenship to the son of a gay couple who was born to a surrogate mother in South Africa, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2006.
The court refused to grant nationality to four-year-old Yona, who had Phillip Luhl, a Namibian, and his Mexican partner, Guillermo Delgado, listed as his parents on the South African birth certificate. The ruling insisted that Yona’s birth “was not registered in accordance with the Citizenship Act.”
Although homosexuality is illegal in Namibia, the 1927 sodomy law is rarely enforced.
