Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Thursday scrapped a law against adultery because it found it discriminated against women, in a victory for female activists after a year-long battle.
”With a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the sections under contest were null and void, meaning that the adultery law is now dead,” said Joseph Murangira, the Constitutional Court registrar.
The court ruled in favour of a group of female activists to expunge the law from the penal code in the name of sexual equality, he said.
The scrapped law states that it is an offence for a married woman to have an affair with a man, whether he is married or not.
However, under the same law, a man only commits adultery if he has an affair with a married woman, not if it is with an unmarried woman.
In the same ruling, the court also voided parts of succession law that gave more rights to men on the death of their wives than to widows.
Lawyers from the group Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda brought the case against the country’s Attorney General last April.
”The law was setting two standards for women and men,” said the group’s lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi. ”The adultery offence no longer exists on the statute books of the country after this ruling. People can now be guided by their marriage’s contractual obligations and their faith.” — Sapa-AFP