Sala IV rules inmates have right to same-sex conjugal visits

Inmates in Costa Rican prisons now have the right to receive conjugal visits from same-sex partners.

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a phrase in the Technical Penitentiary Code restricting conjugal visits to persons “of a different sex” than the prisoner.

The Sala IV found that the phrase, which appears in article 66 of the Technical Penitentiary Code, “contravenes, among others, the principles of equality and human dignity.”