The Bermuda Government’s legal grounds to revoke same-sex marriage can today be revealed in The Royal Gazette.

The case, set to go before the Court of Appeal tomorrow, is scheduled for three days.

The Attorney-General, represented by James Guthrie QC, a prominent English barrister, will challenge the constitutional basis for an earlier ruling that struck down a ban on the unions.

Ian Kawaley, the former Chief Justice, found that a ban on same-sex marriage was at odds with the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of conscience and creed.

The landmark judgment, on June 6, was the latest twist in a legal saga dating back to July 2016.

But the notice of appeal, obtained by The Royal Gazette, argued that the grounds for Mr Justice Kawaley’s decision were not valid under the Constitution.

The document that laid out the Government’s case said that Mr Justice Kawaley made a mistake when he found that freedom of conscience, which includes freedom of thought and religion, could be applied to same-sex marriage.

It also maintained that the Chief Justice was wrong when he used previous cases that “depend on an element of compulsion or coercion which is absent in the present case”.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers will also challenge Mr Justice Kawaley’s decision to “ignore European case law” that the prohibition of same-sex marriage does not go against the European Convention on Human Rights — and that “social policy will normally be for Parliament, and not the court, to decide”. Read more via Royal Gazette