Hong Kong ruling on same-sex couples needs to be respected and applied
- City’s top court has given the government 2 years to come up with a framework for the legal recognition of such relationships
The ruling by Hong Kong’s top court in favour of a gay activist is the latest in a long line of final judgments intended to prevent discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community and interference with their private lives. In the past, the court’s decisions have dealt incrementally with specific government policies found to have unlawfully infringed rights.
These have included issues such as access to dependency visas, receipt of spousal benefits and the changing of a person’s gender on their identity cards.
Tuesday’s judgment went further than that. The court, in a split decision, found that the government has an obligation to put in place a framework for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships.
It is truly a landmark. This was, however, only a partial victory for activist Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit.
The court unanimously rejected his argument that the constitutional right to marry in Hong Kong applies to same-sex couples.
He also failed to convince the judges that his marriage in New York in 2013 should be recognised in the city.