Uganda's Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected a bid to scrap a controversial anti-gay law that is considered one of the toughest in the world.

Justice Richard Buteera, Uganda's deputy chief justice and head of the court, said in the landmark ruling that; "We decline to nullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 in its entirety, neither will we grant a permanent injunction against its enforcement," Justice Richard Buteera.

The five-judge bench however ruled that sections of the law violated the right to health and infringed on the right to adequate standards of living as enshrined in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But "the upshot of our judgement is that this petition substantially fails," Buteera said, reading a summary of the more than 200-page ruling.