 It's from Saq Loa, Hemant, please. Thank you. Good morning, coaches, Professor Withit and Chris, if I may refer to you as the teacher. Good morning, everybody. It's indeed a pleasure to be here amongst all of you. And as Brianna, you mentioned yesterday that you were standing between the delegates and the coffee break. Today I have to repeat the same expression that I am also standing between a coffee break and all of you. But there is a famous expression that there is always a gap between cup and sip. And let me be that gap today. And mind it, I said cup and sip, not cup and lip. Well, as you all know that I'm a lawyer by profession and I represent Saq Loa, a body of lawyers, as it's a Secretary General. And many a times when I address events, conferences, et cetera, I put a question. How can you tell whether a lawyer is speaking lies? And uniformly, answer comes from all directions when the lips are moving. So well, my lips are also going to move today. But I assure you that I won't be telling lies because all my lies end in the courtroom. The moment you exit the premise of the court, you're not allowed to speak lies. Lies are only meant for courtrooms. Well, let me give you a brief background or a backdrop about Saq Loa because this is Saq Loa's first interaction with many of you, though we have been associated with all the UN institutions for quite some time. Saq Loa was established in 1991 in Sri Lanka and it comprises of eight member nations from South Asia. I need not mention those countries, you would know. The constituents of Saq Loa are judges, lawyers, law teachers, academicians, law officers of the government, and people who have expressed interest in the development of law. It's a very uncomplicated constitution which Saq Loa embodies. It has two objectives. First being getting the legal fraternity of the region together so that they can develop cooperation, understanding, and exchange ideas. And second objective, the most important, being using law as an instrument as a catalyst for social change. We are not a human rights organization per se. We deal with every facet of law, be it commercial, corporate, economic laws, social laws, civil laws, insolvency laws, and human rights laws as well. And let me confess that until 2011, we were in terms of human rights, I'm talking because this forum is more directed towards that particular branch of law. As human rights practitioners, we were primarily focusing on child rights and women rights, ending violence against children, or child labor laws, revamping, or rights of women. It was in 2011 that we were introduced to UNAIDS by Saq Secretariat, person to their guidelines. In fact, Professor Witte, let me share with you that on these SOGI resolutions, the three countries were part of that scheme of voting, India, Pakistan, and Maldives. Pakistan-Maldives voted against the resolution, and India abstained. So abstaining also means neither here or there. So that is also as good or as bad as voting against. But if you were to see the guidelines of Saq, which is driven by India, Pakistan, Maldives, and other countries, Nepal, Bangladesh, the guidelines actually talk about protection of LGBT rights. So they don't practice what they preach. Somebody has to educate our sovereigns that please don't sign on dotted lines when you don't know the intent of the document. I think somebody needs to embarrass them through media or perhaps through some workshop or seminar. Once we were introduced to UNAIDS, we signed MOU with UNAIDS, UNDP, ADB, IDLO. And predominantly, the focus was response to HIV AIDS in the region. What were the barriers, legal or policy barriers, and how they were impacting the LGBT rights? They were needing a partner, a legal partner for the Saq region, and they found legal partner in us. And I think we came up to their expectations to the maximum, I would say, because in last four to five years, we have had several events, projects, studies, all are uploaded on our website, where we steered many initiatives in the interest of HIV AIDS and LGBT rights. And here I would also like to share with you a very practical sort of point of view which exists in context of Saq region, that parliamentarians in this region have always failed their electorate. They have legislated only to meet their selfish interests, never ever they have legislated to protect the rights of LGBT. So therefore, left with no option, Saq law started leaning on the judiciary. We devised our annual conferences in such a way that it coincided with Saq Chief Justice Conference. We ensured that all the chief justices of eight nations were present, not on the dice, but in the audience, to listen to the sentiments of the marginalized or the, let me say, vulnerable sort of group. And why we did so? Because there is one good sort of movement which is happening in South Asia that judges are legislating now in a way. Although the law making power was with parliamentarians, but through declaratory orders, they have started passing laws in a way. And this 377 clarification which was issued by the Delhi High Court had an effect of a law because you basically created a proviso under section 377 by a way of which you excluded a particular segment of individuals from the purview of section 377. And which was very doable because day in, day out, courts are passing judgments which have the effect of law. So we clinked on with the judiciary and we started influencing their mindset in a way that they started passing verdicts which they gathered from the deliberations of Saqlal. So we will definitely take credit of that. And the interesting feature was that the case, whether pertained to that point or not, they would somewhere in their observations try to get in the content of the deliberation which they picked up in our conferences and workshops and seminars. So therefore this orientation of judiciary became very relevant for us. And with all due respect to national human rights commissions, they are absolutely fundamental for our society and for protection of LGBT rights. But at the same time, it is very important to involve constitutional courts because human rights are part of fundamental rights and fundamental rights are enshrined in constitution which can be protected more effectively by the higher judiciary. The judiciary, I mean to say, are great courts or constitution courts. And there have been many occasions where UN AIDS and UNDP have invited sitting judges who were earlier quite skeptical about attending these open events, but they have been attending, sitting judges have been attending because we have nominated several judges on their round tables where they have come, they have expressed, they have aired their views very openly with regard to LGBT rights. I'll just take a couple of more minutes. How SACC law became relevant was that our office wearers are quite a powerful lobby. They have been former ministers or future ministers, they are members of parliament. We have sitting judges, our president by convention is always a Supreme Court judge or a chief justice. We have had several chief justices as our president and the current president is also the senior most puny judge of the Nepal Supreme Court. If all goes well, he's likely to be the next chief justice as well. The erstwhile president was chief justice of Bhutan who took amazing initiative with regard to LGBT rights. And we must admit that South Asia had a taboo about these expressions LGBT. But we were able to make inroads into their minds and hearts and spirits so that they at least became open. And that's how this 377 order came by Delhi High Court. And if Supreme Court overruled that, believe me Professor Witte, it was because of case badly presented before Supreme Court. Because the focus of the lawyers of LGBT was on what? That sexual orientation is immutable, which is not, which is incorrect. And secondly, the focus was too much on sex. Well, a relationship between man and man or woman and woman is much beyond sex. The lawyer was actually wanting Supreme Court to draft a operating manual for how to conduct sex amongst LGBT community. You can't expect Supreme Court judge to give you a judgment with regard to operating manual as to what you have to do within the four corners of your room. The argument should have confined to only one line which Professor Witte has beautifully written in the forward to the regional report of the NHRIs. It's a beautiful expression. He has said that they wish to be what they are. Just this one line should have been focused during the argument that you can't expect a person to be otherwise which he is not or she's not. So an approach should have been taken with regard to a human rights angle rather than a 377 focused corner intercourse against the order of nature. It is not, I mean, it completely deviated the judge. And he thought that it's more of a lust oriented petition rather than a genuine sort of argument with regard to a relationship, with regard to a person who or she, what she is or what they wish to be. It's a matter of choice. So you cannot sort of convert somebody by way of a judicial order. So I mean, that's what I felt because I went through the judgment and but then don't take this judgment as a negative judgment because it's a 100 page document which sums up the entire argument of anti-LGBT lobby. So you don't have to look at any other document. Just look at this judgment and demolish it by carrying out a campaign with regard to by, you know, perhaps an event of this sort. Because each of the expression of that judgment is objectionable because of he saying that sex and food is within the domain of sovereign. You can regulate it, which is absolutely ridiculous. And then the judge goes on to say that this western thinking cannot be transplanted into the South Asian thinking. Why? We are living in a global village. I mean, I don't consider myself an Indian because at the drop of hat, I could travel any part of the world. So on one hand, we are moving towards globalization. And on the other hand, we are saying that this is West ideology. This is North ideology. This is South's ideology or this is the ideology of the South Asia. So the judgment was quite primitive and backward looking, but I won't blame judges to that extent because the arguments weren't carried forward so beautifully. Let me close my address by referring to William Douglas, Supreme Court judge of the United States of 20th century. He said that to look for static security in law or elsewhere is absolutely misplaced and misfounded. The security in today's context lies in constant change. You have to get out of age-old ideas. You have to move on. You have to adapt old ideas to a newer development. That's what, you know, I mean, these were few sort of views of mine or thoughts I wanted to share with you. Sacklow website you must visit. And my email ID is also there. So if you would need any sort of assistance from my side, I would be more than happy to come forward. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you to all of us. Thank you very much, and thank you to all of us who contributed, and clearly we've had time for discussion.