Tighter laws on child pornography urged in Gibraltar

I'm pleased to see Brian Reyes writing today in the Gibraltar Chronicle, has highlighted the concerns hundreds of local people have expressed in a group on Facebook recently, about Child Pornography Laws in Gibraltar.

The group, created by my good friend and well known Gibraltar saxophonist Nick Gonzalez, urges that 'Child Pornography Laws in Gibraltar Should be Changed NOW'.

The Facebook group, was set up following a recent court case that highlighted a glaring hole in Gibraltar’s legislation.

A man who admitted distributing nearly 5,000 pornographic images of children, including some extreme photos, was jailed for 18 months for publishing obscene material. But he could not be prosecuted for having the images in the first place because possession of child pornography is not a crime in Gibraltar.

Nick Gonzalez, the group’s creator, echoing the sentiments of many of us, said "I set up this group out of anger".

"I wanted to create awareness and put pressure on the government and the judicial system to change this situation as soon as possible."

In just over a week over 650 people have now joined the group. In the Chronicle, Brian Reyes says that many of the comments on the group's pages are "often emotive and angry, but mainly express underlying bewilderment as to why Gibraltar has such an inexplicable shortfall in its laws", and adds:

"Change, however, is on its way, though the timetable is not certain."

The Gibraltar Government has drafted a new law covering computer misuse and including penalties of up to 10 years in jail for possession of child pornography.

But as Brian Reyes points out, although the Bill has been ready since last year, it has not yet been tabled in Parliament and passed into law.

A separate legislative proposal covering sexual offences has also been drafted. It includes provisions for a sexual offenders’ register, which Gibraltar does not currently have, and for which Gibraltar's equality group GGR, lead by Felix Alvarez have been campaigning for since 2005.

But this too has yet to be tabled in Parliament and passed into law.

These and many other laws, such as those surrounding issues of human rights, are long overdue for reform. Some of these are being focused on now through the introduction of proposals by Minister for Justice Daniel Feetham recently. Let's hope these will all be reformed... sooner rather than later!

You too can show your support

If you are a Facebook member and would like to show your support, you can join the group here: 'Child Pornography Laws in Gibraltar Should be Changed NOW'

Brian Reyes Blog

Brian Reyes, is a Gibraltarian journalist. Whilst he regularly writes in the Gibraltar Chronicle, Brian also offers his personal views and comments on many other interesting issues in his own blog over at Letters From Gibraltar.

Gibraltar's Gay age of consent and California ruling on gay marriage on Proposition 8

As you may have read in Gibraltar's local media, a Bill to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals, by setting this at 16, the age that already applies for heterosexuals and lesbians, was heard in the Gibraltar Parliament recently.

Daniel Feetham, the Minister for Justice, took the unusual step of bringing a motion asking for leave to introduce a Private Members’ Bill for an Act to amend the Criminal Offences Act.

There is overwhelming international legal and local constitutional pressure to implement equalisation although the issue is untested in the local courts.

The Equality Rights Group GGR welcomed the Bill:

"After nine years of GGR raising the public debate on sexual minorities in Gibraltar, we are pleased to see that Parliament has finally considered the question of age of consent inequality currently in force."

I was pleased to see the Bill has been passed to proceed to a formal reading of a Bill in Parliament.

As GGR Chairman Felix Alvarez recently said:

"Whilst Government has failed to introduce the debate as a public Bill on what, after all, is a public issue and instead, preferred to rely on one of its own members in a purely private capacity, it has, nonetheless passed the motion to proceed on the formal reading of a Bill to equalise the legislation. This, in effect, falls short of Government’s legal requirement to comply with what is unarguably an international law obligation and not, as they have argued, a mere question of ‘conscience'."

As Brian Reyes concluded when referring to a recent 'Child Porn' case, "Time for the legislators to get moving on this…swiftly, methinks", there's much to be done to bring legislation in these and other matters concerning human rights and anti-discrimination in Gibraltar, to international and European law standards!

Gay age of consent: Is 16 too young?

Back in March this year, Peter Caruana, Gibraltar's Chief Minister indicated that the Government was likely to be obliged to make the age of consent the same for heterosexuals and gays, although he expressed his own moral disagreement with this, saying that "young people have enough pressure on them at that stage of life". He did however concede that the 'leveling' is likely to happen. The 'great unspoken', as the Chronicle recently described this, is that it is expected that Peter Caruana, a devout Catholic who nonetheless backed the original decriminalisation of gay sex, may refrain from backing the substantive bill, which includes this issue of 'age of consent' when it goes before Parliament.

There's no question that this is a difficult moral issue and it's no surprise that emotions have been running high in Gibraltar over the issue of age of consent... and not just for gay males!

The Gibraltar Women’s Association have been arguing that the age of consent for sex should be 18 for men and women.

Back in January this year, responding to correspondence in the Gibraltar Chronicle the GWA were critical of the GGR lobbying of the Council of Europe. In a statement the GWA said they "wholeheartedly" agreed with a letter to the newspaper from Andrew Mifsud (10th January 2008 in the Gibraltar Chronicle).

"Mr Mifsud may be ‘bewildered’ but we are absolutely ‘flabbergasted’.

The Gibraltar Women’s Association is not a minority group as is the GGR and Mr Alvarez has no right to fight for rights which the majority of women in Gibraltar (including lesbians) have not asked for or want.

If a heterosexual couple consent to buggery it is their own decision and nobody needs to know!"

The GWA added that the fact that this is illegal "protects women who do not consent to anal sex"! Hmmm... Well, I'm no lawyer, but I would have thought, surely that issue is adequately covered in rape and sexual abuse laws in Gibraltar... and bears very little on the question of age of consent for gays?

Referring to Mr Alvarez the GWA further stated that "in any case, it is already legal between consenting males over the age of 18 so we fail to see what his problem is and why he feels the need to involve the Council of Europe in this matter".

I would respectfully suggest to the ladies of the GWA, that Mr Alvarez's 'problem' is probably not far removed from the same concerns on Mr Feetham's mind. In a recent interview with Paco Oliva, Daniel Feetham, Gibraltar's Minister for Justice, was asked, "why couldn’t you have raised the age of consent to 18"?

This question for me is the critical question in this entire debate.

I believe that when people who support the principle of equalisation come to consider the consequences they will rapidly come to the conclusion that it would be very much harder to obtain a social consensus to increase the age of consent to 18. For a start it would also take Gibraltar in the opposite direction of travel to the rest of Europe in respect of these matters. Strongly Catholic countries have equal ages of consent below 16. That includes Spain at 13, Italy at 14, France at 15 and Portugal at 16. Of the Council of Europe members only Turkey, the Ukraine and with some exceptions Malta have ages of consent set at 18.

But consider the practical and legal difficulties. The age of consent for heterosexual and lesbians has been 16 since at least 1888 when an Ordinance was passed to protect “women and girls” and the legal age at which people can get married in Gibraltar has been 16 for decades. Lets be clear about it, the main motivating factor behind an increase of the age of consent to 18 would be in order to avoid lowering the age of consent for homosexual intercourse. Is that right? Consider, for example, the position of a 17-year old in a steady relationship who now found that his or her ability to have heterosexual intercourse had been curtailed in order to prevent the lowering of the age of homosexual intercourse.

It would also be necessary to raise the age at which people can get legally married. Consider also the bizarre situation that would arise if a 16 or 17 year old married girl were faced with the situation that the age of consent is raised to 18 or the case of young married couple (possibly a serviceman married to a 17 year old girl) coming to Gibraltar from Great Britain where the age of consent is 16. What should we do? Require them to refrain from having sexual intercourse whilst in Gibraltar, or would there be a two-tier system of a different sort whereby they would be exempt from prosecution whilst locals would be liable to prosecution for having sexual intercourse! Do we carve out exceptions for people who are married? What about those who are not married whose relationships are being interfered with retrospectively?

In all these cases people could complain that, under Article 8 of the Convention, their private life had been interfered with, and that raising the age of consent was neither proportionate nor necessary for the protection of their health or morals."

It is quite clear, despite the somewhat over alarmist worries expressed, with good intent I'm sure, by the GWA, that the equalisation of age of consent is the right thing to do.... and the sooner Mr Feetham's motion is passed to law, the better.

Age of Consent - Facebook Group

A Facebook Group has been set up in the hope of obtaining the views of young people in Gibraltar. This is what it asks:

The Women's Association of Gibraltar is asking for the age of sexual consent to be increased from 16 to 18. This means anyone under 18 who has sex will come under the criminal law.

Do you agree? Will this criminalise a lot of young people? Will it lead to increasing shame and a greater generational gap between children and parents?

The Gibraltar Chronicle has carried a lot of criticism of people who want the age of consent between gays and straights equalised. The only voice that is missing is that of the young people themselves. So - should young Gibraltarians make their thoughts heard in the media?

You can visit the Facebook Group here: Age of Consent - Gibraltar

Proposition 8 - Restrictions On Same Sex Marriage

From one Chronicle to another... tonight, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting the state Supreme Court ruling today, that California voters legally outlawed same-sex marriage when they approved the Proposition 8 amendment in November, but the constitutional amendment did not dissolve the union of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before the measure took effect.

The 6-1 decision was issued by the same court that declared a year ago that a state law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violated the right to choose one's spouse and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation.

Prop. 8 undid that ruling. The author of last year's 4-3 decision, Chief Justice Ronald George, said today that the voters were within their rights to approve a constitutional amendment redefining marriage to include only male-female couples.

I'm sad to hear this. I agree with Ellen DeGeneres the twelve-time Emmy Award-winning American stand-up comedienne, television hostess and Hollywood actress, who has strongly campaigned against the Proposition 8 amendment ever since it was proposed. She was "saddened" by the passing of the original ban on same-sex marriage in California.

The talk show host, who is married to Hollywood actress Portia Rossi, recently said that by electing Obama America has taken a giant step forward toward equality but with the Proposition 8 amendment "took a giant step" backwards. She recently quoted Keith Olbermann on msnbc.com, who she thought was "very eloquent and brilliant when he said:

"To me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it."

Ellen added:

"What he said is all that needs to be said. It really is just about following your heart and people paying attention to what the right thing is!

This (the movement) needs for people to not be ignorant. It needs for people to open their minds and understand that it (same sex marriage) is a fundamental right: people need to be allowed to love who they want to love and marry who they want to marry. I don't know what it's going to take, but I have faith that people will realize that this is wrong."

Today's ruling... is a sad indictment on that hope.. and of love and people's humanity. It's about the right to love who you want and to marry whoever you happen to love!

At least, the the ruling does not affect the 18,000 who did manage to get married, before this amendment came into effect!

In concluding this blog post... just for the record... (and in no way apologetically) I will add that I am not gay! I'm just a simple male heterosexual who cares for and loves his fellow man... male, female, gay, lesbian or whatever they happen to choose as their sexual preference!

Onwards and upwards....moving on from MPs and constitutional crisis

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been rather focused on the issues surrounding the MPs abuse of privileges in the House of Commons and the conduct of Speaker Martin.

I suspect I bored many of my regular readers a little bit (possibly a lot), by banging on about Speaker Martin (a very important issue for me)... for which I apologise... but I'm afraid the whole issue, not least MPs expenses abuses, has quite incensed me.

With the resignation of the Speaker yesterday and the reforms that have been announced, I'm glad to say I am feeling a little calmer today... but I can't promise I will not return to these issues as there is still much to do and to be said in this regard, particularly on my strong belief that the electorate must be given the opportunity to have our say on these issues.

On these, not least is the opportunity we have with the forthcoming European Elections, where I hope you will be supporting the Liberal Democrats lists in your constituencies... especially those of you in Gibraltar (and the South West Region of the UK of course) who I hope will join me in support of our very own Gibraltarian candidate, Jonathan Stagnetto.

Other News to Focus On

Whilst all this has been going on, a number of other news has caught my attention and normally, I would have commented on with a blog post... but I haven't, because my energies and my eyesight, which sadly seems to have taken a turn for the worst recently (could be due to the rise in blood pressure... just kidding), has only allowed me to concentrate on the most important issue... and that was the brink of a possible constitutional crisis that the issue of MPs expenses brought us to, in the House of Commons. Thankfully... I think we have seen the worse on this, at least for now.

Amongst the other items of news that have caught my eye, which have concerned me (by no means the only ones) are these:

Gibraltar's Sovereign Territorial Waters

Firstly, the apparent escalation of incidents concerning Gibraltar's sovereign territorial waters where one more incident was reported this week.

This is worrying and I very much hope Spain can be 'encouraged' by the UK's Foreign Office and of course the Gibraltar authorities, to reign in whatever agenda they are now manipulating, before these incidents become more serious and someone is hurt through some 'trigger-happy' blunder. So far, all concerned have been able to show restraint... but I can see how these could easily go awry. Let's hope this can be resolved soon... before someone is hurt and we are having to deal with a much more serious 'international incident'!

Action Require on Child Porn Laws in Gibraltar

This issue touches on issues which I have been concerned about for a very long time... and not just in the context of Gibraltar.

But in the context of Gibraltar, the remarkably anachronistic legislation that exists in Gibraltar, as my colleague Brian Reyes writes about in his blog, Action on child porn laws…finally « Letters From Gibraltar is long overdue for reform, as he rightly points out.

"A few days ago I wrote about a glaring gap in Gibraltar’s legislation. Possession of child pornography, it appeared, was not a crime on the Rock. It wasn’t me who said this, but the judge."

In this, I also very much agree with John Baw, a fellow Gibraltar blogger, who said the resulting sentence in this case, was "Nothing short of outrageous" (WildOx Blog!

Age of Consent Bill in Gibraltar

Not before time, a Bill to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals, by setting this at 16, the age that already applies for heterosexuals and lesbians, was heard in the Gibraltar Parliament.

Daniel Feetham, the Minister for Justice, took the unusual step of bringing a motion asking for leave to introduce a Private Members’ Bill for an Act to amend the Criminal Offences Act.

There is overwhelming international legal and local constitutional pressure to implement equalisation although the issue is untested in the local courts.

The Equality Rights Group GGR welcomed the Bill:

"After nine years of GGR raising the public debate on sexual minorities in Gibraltar, we are pleased to see that Parliament has finally considered the question of age of consent inequality currently in force."

I was pleased to see the Bill has been passed to proceed to a formal reading of a Bill in Parliament.

As GGR Chairman Felix Alvarez said:

"Whilst Government has failed to introduce the debate as a public Bill on what, after all, is a public issue and instead, preferred to rely on one of its own members in a purely private capacity, it has, nonetheless passed the motion to proceed on the formal reading of a Bill to equalise the legislation. This, in effect, falls short of Government’s legal requirement to comply with what is unarguably an international law obligation and not, as they have argued, a mere question of ‘conscience'."

As Brian Reyes concluded when referring to the 'Child Porn' case, "Time for the legislators to get moving on this…swiftly, methinks", there's much to be done to bring legislation in these and other matters concerning human rights and anti-discrimination in Gibraltar, to international and European law standards!

On a Lighter Note...

I was very interested to see this article, in the Telegraph, about the fact that Bright women are brilliant in bed.

This is something that perhaps many men take a little while in finding out for themselves. Personally, I found this out quite early in life and as a consequence, feel very blessed in how my early realisation of this simple and logical fact has much enhanced my... errr lifetime.

On a similar note... speaking of 'bright women' and how attractive that may be... any investor out there looking for some good ideas, might well do a lot worse than to listen to Peter Daily's report on the BBC World Service - Business - Does the crisis need a feminine touch? The ideas and investment opportunity offered by this investment company run by a couple of Icelandic ladies... who offer the slightly extreme proposition that men got us into this current economic mess, maybe women can get us out of it... sounds very interesting to me!

I hope to focus more on all these and no doubt, other issues that will arise, in the foreseeable future.... energy and eyes notwithstanding.

Lesbian couple to appeal in the UK over Gibraltar Government housing policy

I was pleased to read today, that the lesbian couple who were refused a joint tenancy in government housing in Gibraltar are to appeal in the UK.

Three years ago, the Gibraltar Government's Housing Allocation Committee refused to grant them a joint tenancy on the basis that they were unmarried.

Local law states that only parents, spouses and children can be included in a Government tenancy agreement.

Writing in the Gibraltar Chronicle Brian Reyes reports that lawyers for the women have argued that the decision breaches their fundamental Constitutional and human rights but this argument was rejected by the Gibraltar Supreme Court.

After the couple appealed at the Court of Appeal, it was ruled that the government was entitled to protect the ‘traditional family’ by favouring straight married couples when allocating state housing.

The couple will now argue their case in front of the Privy Council in London after being granted permission by acting Chief Justice Anthony Dudley.

Gibraltar retains a higher age of consent for gay sex than across the European Union and the UK. Similarly out of step, it also retains criminal offences such as buggery and gross indecency, which exclusively criminalise gay men.

Writing in his personal blog, Letters from Gibraltar, Brian Reyes believes it is "right that they should pursue this as far as they can".

"Gibraltar’s housing policy, which does not allow joint tenancy for gay couples, is ridiculously old fashioned. It’s not just me who says this. One senior appeals judge went as far as saying it was illegal. So yes, this case should be fought, whatever the result."

"Ridiculously old fashioned" indeed Brian... and that's not the worst of it!

The Equality Rights Group GGR Chairman, Felix Alvarez, a little while back, described anti-discrimination measures in Gibraltar as "woefully inadequate":

"Over the years, legislation on separate discrimination has been introduced and the EU and individual member states have been in the process for some time of bringing anti-discrimination measures together in a more coherent way.

This, of course, is ironic for us, since it is happening against a backdrop in Gibraltar where we hardly have any anti-discrimination law at all, and what there is, is woefully inadequate!"

Thank goodness there are some voices of enlightenment and fair play in Gibraltar!

Brian Reyes however, bemoans the huge legal costs to the Gibraltar taxpayer:

"But it is costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money.

The couple are being funded publicly through the legal assistance scheme. The government has retained senior counsel too.

Surely, someone somewhere could have come up with a better way of sorting this out without having to spend a small fortune."

I agree... it is regrettable that the Gibraltar taxpayer is being forced to pay for this legal process... money which would have been much better spent in providing affordable housing (fairly to all) or in social services, perhaps in more staff and better training for housing for the disabled.

Unfortunately, when one is up against very entrenched and 'old fashioned' views in government bureaucracy, I suppose this is a price a community must pay, in making progress, dragging neanderthal bureaucrats into a more enlightened 21st century... bringing them into step with the European Union and the UK.

The price to the Gibraltar taxpayer however, pails into insignificance I suspect, when compared to the price being paid by those who are being discriminated against purely on the grounds of sexual preference. A price in human misery... being paid by two people (and possibly others now or in the future) who are being refused from enjoying a normal life as a loving couple under the same roof in government housing... in the same way as 'normal' heterosexual couples are allowed to do.

The Gibraltar Government must be forced to accept the error of their ways, and have their ruling overturned... so I very much hope the appeal at the Privy Council in London, will be successful. Here's hoping!

Gibraltar Appeal court ruling on homosexual couples is shameful

I am totally bemused by a Gibraltar Court of Appeal ruling yesterday, that the Gibraltar Government was legally entitled to protect the ‘traditional family’ by favouring heterosexual married couples in the allocation of state-owned housing!

Two local lesbians failed in a legal bid to convince Gibraltar’s highest court that Government housing policy discriminates against homosexual couples.

The case dates back over three years and stems from a decision by the Housing Allocation Committee to refuse the couple joint tenancy of a Government flat, even though the women were in long-term, monogamous and loving relationship.

Under Gibraltar law, only parents, spouses and children can be included in a Government tenancy agreement.

Lawyers said that left the two women at a disadvantage because, unlike heterosexuals, they could not marry and had no way of meeting the criteria for joint tenancy of a Government-owned flat.

Last December the Supreme Court rejected claims that the Government's refusal to offer the couple joint tenancy housing amounted to a breach of the couple’s fundamental Constitutional and human rights.

Acting Chief Justice Anthony Dudley also dismissed a separate argument that a same-sex couple should be afforded equality under common law to a married couple of the opposite sex.

The couple appealed the decision but yesterday the Court of Appeal agreed, by a majority of two to one, with Mr Justice Dudley's earlier ruling in December last year.

However, the Gibraltar Chronicle report said "the judgment yesterday fell short of an unequivocal victory for the Gibraltar Government" with "one clear voice of dissent".

The Appeal was heard by three senior UK judges, Sir William Aldous, Sir Paul Kennedy and Sir Murray Stuart-Smith, the President of the Court of Appeal.

The 'clear voice of dissent' was that of Sir William Aldous, who was clearly far more 'learned' than his colleagues. Sir William agreed with the couple and even went as far as describing the Government policy as "illegal"!

In a 33-page Judgment, Sir Paul Kennedy said that "... the preference which (the Government policy) gave to married couples was a positive preference of a kind which the law regards as acceptable in circumstances such as these, and which did not require further justification."

He was backed in that view by Sir Murray Stuart-Smith, the President of the Court of Appeal, who said that marriage was widely accepted in legal precedent as an institution that conferred particular status.

"There is no analogy between married couples and couples who remain unmarried, whether by choice in the case of heterosexual couples or because they are unable to marry in the case of homosexual partners.

The protection of the ‘traditional family’ is in principle a legitimate aim of domestic legislation."

Well, maybe so... and I would not disagree with these basic principles. I think protecting the 'traditional family' is a good basic principle for any country's domestic legislation... but so is protecting against homophobia and Governments (or anyone) discriminating against people on the grounds of sexual orientation! Which is why both the UK and the European Union laws disallow discrimination of this kind on those grounds!

I'm no lawyer... but it seems to me that this ruling flies in the face of both!

Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) protects against discrimination based on a number of criteria including sex. The ECHR has also been incorporated into the laws of the United Kingdom by the Human Rights Act 1998

So how can two UK judges sitting on a Court of Appeal in Gibraltar rule in favour of the Government in this instance??

Frankly, I find this judgment very disappointing and I simply cannot understand it!

The Gibraltar Chronicle report concludes that "for now at least, the decision brings to a close a case that could have set a landmark precedent for gay rights in Gibraltar"... but I for one very much hope that this issue is not allowed to rest here.

Following the Gibraltar Appeal Court ruling, Gibraltar's Equality Rights Group GGR criticised the Gibraltar Government for "wasteful use of taxpayers' money in pursuing court actions which, in the end, it will have to go back on".

Equality Rights Group Chairman, Felix Alvarez said "the vast majority of Europeans today consider the kind of treatment being meted out by the Housing Allocations Committee to same-sex couples as unfair and unacceptable".... and I am one of those Europeans!

In his statement, the Equality Rights Group Chairman said:

"While government spends many thousands of pounds in preventing a gay couple from being able to occupy one flat jointly instead of being allocated two separate housing units as a couple of long-standing, they know as well as we do, that the EU will be introducing binding law which will make discrimination in housing illegal on the grounds of sexual orientation.

In other words, government will have no choice in the matter in a few years’ time.

The Caruana government continues to pour big money into the defence of a position it is doomed to lose.

What kind of reasoning is this when not so long ago we were being told by the Minister for Justice that the access of ordinary citizens to Legal Aid had to be re-defined and curtailed in order to save money?

Something somewhere just does not fit in what appears, more and more, to be a government policy led by prejudice and homophobia.

The rulings of the Courts must be respected at all times. However, judgments are subject to further appeal. GGR will continue to support this and any other same-sex individual or couple with a just cause in discrimination to take their complaint as far as the law permits.

In this case, we look forward to the Court of Appeal’s recent ruling being overturned either by the Privy Council in the UK, or by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. We are confident this will turn out to be so. And even if it isn’t, in a few years’ time we will still live to see government obliged to change its policy by law, whether the present administration likes it or not. The only shame is that government should still insist on wasting citizens’ money.”

Protecting 'traditional family values'?

Whilst I might share Felix's concern over the Government's wasting of tax payers' money to a degree, I am far more concerned with the more shameful aspect of all this, which is a Government relentless in its obstructive policy, discriminating against two human beings on the grounds of their sexual orientation! Shameful!

If the Gibraltar Government is genuinely interested in protecting 'traditional family values' (whatever those may be), they might do better by looking into protecting against and restraining the amount of domestic violence, physical, sexual, psychological and / or financial violence that prevails in Gibraltar... a society that continually turn a blind eye and brushes under the carpet, far more concerning issues within the Sanctity of Marriage... which brings 'traditonal family values' far more into question, than a same sex couple wanting to share their lives under a joint roof ever will!

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Gibraltar discrimination laws 'woefully inadequate' say GGR

Gibraltar's Equality Rights Group, GGR, have today criticised the Gibraltar Government, accusing them of "extravagance" and saying anti-discrimination laws in Gibraltar are "woefully inadequate".

In a statement today, welcoming news that MEPs in the EU’s Civil Liberties Committee have now formally backed plans for a Directive on multiple discriminations, Equality Rights Group Chairman, Felix Alvarez (right) said:

"Over the years, legislation on separate discriminations has been introduced and the EU and individual member states have been in the process for some time of bringing anti-discrimination measures together in a more coherent way.

This, of course, is ironic for us, since it is happening against a backdrop in Gibraltar where we hardly have any anti-discrimination law at all, and what there is, is woefully inadequate!"

"Of particular importance," added Mr Alvarez, "is the fact that under the new Directive, governments will not be able to discriminate on housing against people whether disabled, gay, or across a range of categories".

The GGR Chairman urged the Gibraltar Government to "take note". He reminds them that only three months ago, the Gibraltar courts ordered the Housing Committee to re-consider their discriminatory treatment of a lesbian couple regarding a joint tenancy, a decision they subsequently refused to change. The case went to appeal, at huge expense to the Gibraltar taxpayer. The case is also likely to proceed "further and further" says Mr Alvarez, "until exhausting the judicial process at Strasbourg".

Accusing the Government of "extravagant" spending of tax payers money, Mr Alvarez concluded:

"This indecent use of taxpayers’ money, to simply delay the inevitable, only serves to emphasise the entrenchment of a Gibraltar government increasingly at odds with modern trends in social law.

If we are to believe that government is serious about cutting down costs on litigation, this kind of spending is not only disproportionate, it is also extravagant.

At the end of the day, we are talking about treating all citizens in a fair and equal way."

Well said Felix! Bringing Gibraltar's human rights legislation into the 21st century... is long overdue!