“It is not the business of the law to regulate the private behavior of two consenting adults,” Leburu said. Although seldom enforced in Botswana, the laws carried the possibility of up to a seven-year jail sentence. Reading the unanimous ruling of a panel of judges in front of a packed courtroom, Justice Michael Leburu said that sexual orientation “is not a fashion statement” and that the laws as they stood violated citizens’ rights to privacy and freedom from discrimination.
NAIROBI - The high court in Botswana struck down two colonial-era laws Tuesday, effectively legalizing gay sex and making this southern African country the first on the continent to erase that colonial legacy through its courts.
