Court of Appeal justices Jeremy Poon, Aarif Barma and Thomas Au said in a written judgment that the authority’s treatment of gay married couples was “discriminatory in nature” and they should be afforded equal treatment.
“The differential treatment in the present cases is a more severe form of indirect discrimination than most cases because the criterion is one which same-sex couples can never meet,” the judges said in their ruling.
One of the men involved in the second case, Henry Li, welcomed the ruling in a post on Facebook.
Rights group Hong Kong Marriage Equality also welcomed the decision saying it had made clear “that discrimination and unequal treatment on the ground of sexual orientation has no place in public policy decisions”.
Hong Kong’s top court in September ruled against same-sex marriage but acknowledged the need for same-sex couples “for access to an alternative legal framework in order to meet basic social requirements”.
The government was given two years to come up with the framework.
A Hong Kong court in September sided with a married lesbian couple who argued that both women should have parental status over their child born via reciprocal IVF.
Activists in other parts of Asia are watching Hong Kong’s courts in the hope that their rulings could influence campaigns for reform elsewhere.
Source: CNA
