Appeal Court grants leave to proceed with Equal Ground’s writ petition

• Action filed against Police, Ama Dissanayake over homophobia and discrimination

The Court of Appeal has granted leave to proceed with Equal Ground’s petition against the Inspector General of Police C.D. Wickramaratane, Deputy Inspector General of Police of the Kandy range Chandana Alahakoon, and purported counsellor and trainer, Ama Dissanayake over violation of rights and discriminations against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTIQ) community in Sri Lanka.

After the writ petition was supported on 8 December, the two-judge bench comprising Justices Sobhitha Rajakaruna and Dhammika Ganepola, declared that there was a cause of action and ordered Court to issue notice to the respondents in the Petition.

President’s Counsel Sanjeewa Jayawardena appears for the petitioners.  

Equal Ground in a statement said this was the first petition of its nature that had been heard in Sri Lanka’s Courts and believed that it set a positive precedent in terms of ending discrimination and marginalisation as well as police harassment of minority groups in Sri Lanka – including the LGBTIQ community. 

“The Court of Appeal granting leave to proceed with this case is a big win for the LGBTIQ community that has been struggling against discrimination and marginalisation, for over a century,” Equal Ground Executive Director Rosanna Flamer-Caldera said. 

“Discriminatory laws and provisions in Sri Lanka have been keeping LGBTIQ persons in the shadows and causing irreparable harm to innocent persons who are not allowed to be their authentic selves. But what we saw in the Court of Appeal yesterday is definitely a step in the right direction,” she noted. 

Equal Ground is also grateful for the unprecedented support for its cause by the LGBTIQ community and its allies in the media and on social media. 

Equal Ground was supported by an intervening petition filed by three petitioners as interested parties, including those of the LGBTIQ community. The court ordered them to be added as intervening respondent-petitioners.

“We hope that justice will prevail in these circumstances as homophobic speech is tantamount to a hate crime against members of the LGBTIQ community – and that too by the police whose duty is to protect and serve every citizen of this country, without bias,” Flamer-Caldera added. 

In September, Equal Ground and others filed a petition in the Court of Appeal seeking a mandate in the nature of a Writ of Prohibition against the above-mentioned respondents for conducting a training program for the Police where malicious, erroneous, and discriminatory remarks were made about the LGBTIQ community.