Senegal Court blocks constitutional ban on gay marriages

A bill that would have created a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the West African nation of Senegal has been thrown out by its Constitutional Council – but it’s not the win you might think it is.

Senegal’s National Assembly voted unanimously in favour of defining marriage as exclusively “the union between a man and a woman” in late June after doubling prison sentences for homosexual offences in March.

Homosexuality has been illegal in Senegal since 1965 and now attracts prison sentences of up to ten years.

But the Senegalese Constitution only states that “marriage and the family constitute the natural and moral foundation of human society, and are placed under the protection of the State,” without defining who can marry.

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President and Parliament are at loggerheads

The government was seeking to correct that, but its mistake was to include the ban on same-sex marriage in a larger bill that would have redrawn the balance of power between the country’s Executive Branch and its Parliament.

For that reason, it was opposed by Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

Had the bill been passed, it would have relegated the President to more of a ceremonial role as Head of State while boosting the powers of Senegal’s Prime Minister to run the country.

Observers say the result is an unintended consequence of a power struggle between President Diomaye and the country’s former Prime Minister, now Speaker of the House, Ousmane Sonko, whom the President dismissed in May.

This may only be a temporary setback as President Diomaye has previously suggested that a referendum be held to ban same-sex marriage in Senegal’s Constitution.

An ongoing crackdown

The power struggle comes as Senegal continues to crack down on LGBTQIA+ people.

In December, police arrested 15 members of a gay WhatsApp group, while 17 were arrested at an alleged sex party in October.

Another wave of arrests began in February, with press reports suggesting that as many as 30 people were at that time in custody over alleged homosexual offences.

Homosexuality was only criminalised in Senegal in 1965, following its independence from France, which had legalised homosexuality in 1791, and so did not impose anti-gay laws on Senegal when it gained control of its territory in the 1850s.

However, in recent years, many of its former African colonies have sought to outlaw or further criminalise homosexuality, in what some have described as a nationalistic backlash against France’s colonial legacy on the continent.

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