Factoring public opinion in key gay rights ruling

A major new judgment from a full Bench of the High Court in Namibia has set aside that country’s common law crimes of sodomy and unnatural sexual offences. The court found them both unconstitutional and invalid, and said they made unjustified inroads on the human dignity of those affected. Given that this is a country with strongly conservative social views, how did the court deal with the question of the weight to accord public opinion? Carmel Rickard, in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, looks at this and other aspects of the decision and its possible aftermath.