Hong Kong’s top court rules in favour of same-sex couple rights

Judge rules that the government’s policies favouring heterosexual couples ‘cannot beryllium justified’.

Hong Kong’s apical tribunal has ruled to affirm lodging and inheritance rights for same-sex couples, siding against the authorities successful a triumph for the city’s LGBTQ community.

Chief Justice Andrew Cheung wrote successful 2 rulings connected Tuesday that the Court of Final Appeal had unanimously dismissed appeals brought by the Hong Kong authorities against earlier decisions affirming LGBTQ rights.

Government lawyer Monica Carss-Frisk had argued that Hong Kong’s lodging argumentation was designed to enactment “procreation” among opposite-sex partners.

But successful his ruling, Cheung said policies excluding same-sex couples from nationalist rental flats and subsidised flats sold nether the city’s Home Ownership Scheme “cannot beryllium justified”.

“[For] needy same-sex joined couples who cannot spend backstage rental accommodation, the [government’s] exclusionary argumentation could good mean depriving them of immoderate realistic accidental of sharing household beingness nether the aforesaid extortion astatine all,” Cheung said.

On the contented of inheritance, judges Joseph Fok and Roberto Ribeiro wrote successful Tuesday’s ruling that authorities had besides “failed to warrant the differential treatment” of same-sex couples.

The judges deemed existing rules excluding same-sex couples from benefits applicable to a hubby and woman erstwhile it comes to distributing a deceased person’s property “discriminatory and unconstitutional”.

A protagonist of LGBTQ rights covered successful the rainbow emblem of Hong Kong checks his telephone astatine the Rainbow Market successful Hong Kong connected November 13, 2021 [Lam Yik/Reuters]

Tuesday’s ruling marks the extremity of a six-year ineligible conflict that began erstwhile nonmigratory Nick Infinger took Hong Kong’s authorities to tribunal implicit a argumentation excluding him and his spouse from nationalist rental lodging arsenic they were not deemed an “ordinary family”.

The lawsuit was aboriginal heard unneurotic with that of different couple, Henry Li and his precocious hubby Edgar Ng, who besides challenged authorities policies connected subsidised lodging and inheritance rules excluding same-sex couples.

Infinger and Li won their law situation successful the Hong Kong Court of Appeal successful October 2023. But the authorities successful February took the cases to the Court of Final Appeal, wherever the sheet of 5 section judges ruled this week.

The ruling comes aft a partial triumph for LGBTQ rights successful Hong Kong successful September 2023, erstwhile the aforesaid tribunal ruled against granting afloat matrimony rights to same-sex couples, but gave the authorities 2 years to acceptable up a model extending different rights.

Activists person said they anticipation the mandated model volition support LGBTQ rights successful a much systemic way, truthful they won’t person to trust connected incremental wins successful court.

Advocacy radical Hong Kong Marriage Equality applauded Tuesday’s rulings, but urged the authorities “to instantly extremity the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage”.

Public enactment for same-sex matrimony successful Hong Kong is increasing and deed 60 percent past year, according to a associated survey by 3 universities.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies