Earlier this month, the India Supreme Court indicated an openness to a last-ditch request from LGBT advocates, who asked them to consider holding arguments in court against its earlier ruling recriminalizing homosexuality.
Today, the court announced that it will grant that request. BuzzFeed’s J. Lester Feder reports:
This is LGBTI rights advocates last chance to toss out the decision, which was a harsh blow after a 12-year litigation process. In January, a two-judge panel (which included one of the judges who issued the original ruling) rejected their first attempt to have the case reconsidered, what is known as a review petition.
The current motion, known as a curative petition, still faces long odds, because the five-judge panel that will consider it includes the two judges who rejected the review petition.
The other judges on the panel will be the three most senior judges on the court…
The curative petition process is still relatively new, having only been created in 2002. It is only available in cases where the court believes the original ruling in a case violated fundamental rights. Only a handful of these petitions have succeeded.
A landmark ruling last week that granted official recognition to transgender people for the first time is expected to bolster the pro-LGBT lawyers’ case.
“Though the judges in the transgender rights case were careful to explicitly say they were not offering an opinion on the [sodomy law] case,” Feder writes, “their ruling reads almost like a point-by-point rebuttal to the [sodomy law] ruling.”
A date for the rehearing is expected to be set next week.
By John M. Becker
Source – The Bilerico Project
