Tears flowed freely in a high courtroom in Kenya on Friday after a case seeking to overturn a law criminalising same-sex relationships was dismissed. Presiding judge Roselyne Aburili said, "The petitions had no merit." She said that decriminalizing same-sex relations contradicts constitutional values and the customs of Kenyan people.

Kenya has continued to hold on to a colonial-era law that bans gay sex. Kenya's LGBTQ community petitioned the court seeking the abolishment of sections 162 and 165 of the Kenyan penal code, which forbids homosexual behaviour and prescribes a jail sentence of up to 14 years for those found guilty. LGBTQ people argued that the laws stand in stark breach of the assurance of protection from discrimination and the right to human dignity and privacy for all that is prescribed in the country's constitution.

"We hereby decline the relief sought [by the LGBTQ group]. Having considered the arguments on both sides, the precedence, the constitution and the law, we're not satisfied that the petitioners' [bid] is sustainable," said Aburili on behalf of a panel of three judges.

In a ruling that lasted almost two hours and quoted both international case law and national provisions protecting the family, culture and religion, the judges stated that the contested provisions do not target a specific group of people, but rather "any person", and therefore cannot be considered discriminatory. Furthermore, the judges ruled that Sections 162 and Sections 165 do not violate the right to dignity or privacy of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer) individuals. Read more via Al Jazeera