HAMILTON, Bermuda (CMC) – A ruling by the Privy Council on legislation intended to halt same-sex marriages in Bermuda is set to be delivered next week – more than a year after the case was heard in London.

According to the Privy Council website, the decision on the case, between the Attorney-General of Bermuda and Rod Ferguson and others, will be read out on Monday morning, local media reported.

Bermuda’s Ministry of Home Affairs has confirmed that at least US$411,627 from the public purse has been spent on outside lawyers and law firms involved in the case.

That figure does not include the cost of having government lawyers in the Attorney-General’s Chambers work extensively on the case.

It also does not take into account any future costs that may have to be paid for the opposing side if the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) government loses the long-running case.

Adrian Hartnett-Beasley, a spokesman for OutBermuda, a gay rights group, said on Wednesday the organisation was glad to hear that a decision was coming, “whatever the outcome”.

The case in London before Bermuda’s highest court of appeal marked the final chapter in a roller-coaster saga that at one stage saw Bermuda become the first country in the world to approve same-sex marriage and then take away the right, but a series of court decisions means that gay couples can currently get married on the island.

Legal sources say the outcome could also set a precedent for same-sex marriage across the UK’s Crown Dependencies and other Overseas Territories, as well as a host of former territories.

Lord Pannick QC, for supporters of same-sex marriage,  told the Privy Council in February last year that Bermuda was a multicultural country with people of different beliefs and it would be unconstitutional for the government to create a “hierarchy of beliefs” by showing preference.

“The wish of some people to live in a society in which other people are not allowed to marry because they are a same-sex couple is not a reasonable aim,” he said.

He was speaking on the final day of the hearing which was tasked with deciding if a clause in the 2018 Domestic Partnership Act (DPA), introduced by the PLP government, that banned same-sex marriage was legal.

Bermuda’s Supreme Court ruled in May 2017 that gay couples could marry on the island, but six months later the PLP government, which ousted the One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) in the July general election that year, passed the DPA, outlawing same-sex weddings.

A challenge was brought against the act by Ferguson, with OutBermuda joining the legal action.

Former Bermuda Chief Justice Ian Kawaley, ruling on their case in 2018, found that the parts of the legislation that restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples were against the Bermuda constitution.

The island’s Court of Appeal later upheld Justice Kawaley’s ruling and allowed same-sex marriages to take place again, but the government refused to give up, pointing to a non-binding 2016 referendum introduced by the OBA government, in which the majority of voters opposed same-sex marriage in a low turn-out at the polls.

The Attorney-General then took the case to the Privy Council.

The original Supreme Court decision in 2017 came in a judgment by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons after Bermudian Winston Godwin and Greg DeRoche, his Canadian partner, litigated against the Registrar-General for refusing to post their wedding banns.

Despite their landmark victory, Godwin and DeRoche chose to marry in Canada.

Bermudian lawyer Julia Saltus and her Ghanaian-American partner Judith Aidoo were the first gay couple to wed in Bermuda.