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How same-sex spousal visa ruling will affect other cases in Hong Kong including gay civil servant Angus Leung’s appeal
Legal experts weigh in on landmark ruling in favour of lesbian couple on similar cases that challenge ‘discriminatory practices’
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A landmark ruling by Hong Kong’s top court allowing a lesbian expatriate couple to obtain a dependant visa may not help a gay civil servant who is appealing a decision to deny his partner spousal welfare, legal experts said on Thursday.
Despite siding with the LGBT community, the Court of Final Appeal’s judgment on Wednesday did not address the city’s traditional definition of marriage, the experts said.
Christian leaders in the city also said the finding did not pose a threat to heterosexual marriage.
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In its unanimous decision, the Court of Final Appeal sided with the British citizen, known in court as QT, when it found that the Immigration Department should grant same-sex partners spousal visas previously available only to heterosexual couples.
Hailed as a victory for the city’s LGBT community, Wednesday’s ruling stood in stark contrast to the community’s legal setback last month when senior immigration officer Angus Leung Chun-kwong lost his appeal against the Civil Service Bureau and Inland Revenue over access to spousal benefits for his husband, Scott Adams, whom he married in New Zealand in 2014, and to file taxes as a married person.
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