Gavels & Bludgeons for the Best & Worst Judicial Decisions of 2015

The jury and the public have chosen the winning judicial decisions of the 2015 Gender Justice Uncovered Awards. The seventh edition of the Awards concluded with approximately 100,000 case views, more than 10,000 votes and 67 nominated decisions across 28 countries around the world.

June, 10th 2015 – The international human rights organization Women’s Link Worldwide announced the winning decisions of the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards, an initiative that highlights the most progressive and regressive judicial decisions of the year with respect to gender equality. 

The seventh edition of the awards concluded with approximately 100,000 case views, over 10,000 votes and 67 nominated decisions across 28 different countries including: Argentina, Botswana, Colombia, Honduras, México, Namibia, the Philippines, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and many others.

This year’s jury of human rights experts is comprised of Manjula Pradeep, Director of Navsarjan, an organization that fights for Human Rights in India; Claudia Paz y Paz, Former Attorney General of Guatemala and 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee; and Junot Diaz author and 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner. The public also voted on the Women’s Link Worldwide website for the People’s Choice Gavel and Bludgeon Awards.

Bludgeon Award Winners (Judicial decisions that negatively affect gender equality)

The Bronze Bludgeon is awarded to the Sentencing Court of Honduras, which condemned Women’s Human Rights Defender Gladys Lanza to 18 months in prison for “defamation and libel,” thereby criminalizing the important work of human rights defenders.

This year’s Golden Gavel is awarded to the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia which recognized feminicide (the murder of a woman on the basis of her gender) as a crime for the first time and emphasized that such a crime cannot be considered a “crime of passion.”

The Silver Gavel goes to the High Court of Botswana for allowing LGBT rights organizations, like LEGABIBO who brought the case, to officially register with the State, finding the denial would violate Constitutional rights to equal protection, as well as freedom of expression, assembly and association.

The Bronze Gavel goes to the High Court of Ireland holding that a woman, 18-weeks pregnant and brain-dead, could be taken off life support in accordance with her family’s wishes, stating that to continue treatment would deprive the woman the right to a dignified death and subject her family to unimaginable distress. 

The People’s Choice Bludgeon Award goes to the Fifth Circuit Criminal Court in Colombia, for accepting a preliminary agreement which recognized the defense of “marginalization and extreme ignorance” of a father accused of sexual abusing his young daughters. The preliminary agreement undermined the fundamental rights of the victims and reduced the man’s penalty to sixty-four months in prison. This case won 452 votes by the public and received 3,347 views. 

The People’s Choice Gavel Award is awarded to the European Court of Human Rights which prevented the deportation of a Cameroonian woman who was a victim of forced marriage and whose removal from Spain would have endangered her life and safety. This case, brought by the Spanish Commission of Refugee (CEAR), received approximately 12,000 views and a total of 1,836 votes. 

“The Awards seek to demonstrate the important role judges play in the lives of individuals and on society as a whole. Their decisions, which can have an enormous positive or negative impact, ought to be monitored by people around the world to ensure that the judicial decisions are fair, equal and non-discriminatory,” says Tania Sordo Ruz, Coordinator of the Gender Justice Awards.

For more information:

Spain

Colombia