The Coalition of Churches and Organisations (CCO) has called on the government to change its legal team and to appeal the recent ruling in which the Windhoek High Court decriminalised the colonial Sodomy law.

In an online petition, the CCO says, “The counsel that represented the government in this matter is the same counsel that represented the government in the same-sex marriage case both in the High Court and in the Supreme Court, and in all these matters, the counsel dismally failed to accurately, authoritatively, and persuasively advance the position of the government and that of the Namibian people.”

"It is said that 'insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and yet expecting different results'. Evidently, the counsel will not yield different results, and it is therefore prudent for the government to wisely invest taxpayers' money by changing the counsel," reads the petition.

The body further says that the High Court’s decision is not an expression of the consciousness of the Namibian people but a direct contradiction and is in conflict with the very essence of the Namibian people and that which is held to be true and sacred. 

“The judgement is therefore fundamentally an attack on the Namibian family unit and consequently the structure of the Namibian people.”

The decision by the High Court is a departure from Namibian legal jurisprudence; thus, if the government does not appeal, it sets a judicial precedent for Namibian courts to liberally interpret the Constitution against the views, opinions, values, and aspirations of the Namibian people as expressed in the Constitution, says the CCO.