Given that the local appeal court usually grants such leave, Tonner said,
“Once it does so, we will be filing an appeal in the Judicial Committee of The Privy Council (JCPC).”

Day and Bodden began their battle to marry several years ago. It began outside the courts when they wrote to government urging the creation in Cayman of some form of civil union law that would allow same-sex couples equality to the rights afforded by marriage, if not marriage itself.

However, despite a clear ruling from the European Court of Human Rights more than four years ago that this jurisdiction should enact such legislation, the government has failed to do so.

As a result, after being refused a marriage licence, the couple turned to the courts for duress. In a landmark ruling, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie found in their favour and legalised same sex marriage by making minor amendments from the bench to the Marriage Law, after finding that government had made no effort to address the clear violation of the couple’s human rights on several grounds

This outraged government, members of the Legislative Assembly and some conservative elements of the community, in particular several church leaders and their congregations. Therefore, government filed for a stay of CJ Smellie’s decision to allow for an appeal.

While the appeal court found that the government was not obligated to offer marriage and that it had clearly tried to avoid that eventuality in both the constitution and the law, it overturned the chief justice’s ruling. However, the court made it clear that government must offer some form of civil partnership akin to marriage to same sex couples immediately.

But although government has claimed that legislation to meet the appeal court’s direction is being drafted, the direction that it be implemented “expeditiously” has not been met. There is no sign that the draft bill will appear before the parliament in the forthcoming session at the end of this month. So, after almost three months since the appeal court made that ruling, the law is unlikely to appear before legislators for several more months, if at all.

With government still dragging its heels on a same-sex union law, Day and Bodden are continuing their fight for the ultimate equality of marriage and will be calling on the UK’s Privy Council to uphold the chief justice’s ruling. Tonner is expected to argue that the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal should have interpreted the local Constitution as protecting and promoting the rights and freedoms of the people, as the chief justice had, instead of taking the opposite position.

Gay marriage is now legal all across the UK, and the British government has continued to encourage its territories to also implement marriage equality. The Privy Council was expected to hear an appeal from the government of Bermuda after years of wrangling in their courts over the same issue, though in that case the appeal court there had upheld the change to the marriage law by the lower courts.

However, according to news coming from Bermuda just this week, the case may not make it before the JCPC after the government lawyers there missed a critical deadline for re-submissions.