Hong Kong’s top court has upheld three landmark judgments granting equal housing and inheritance rights to same-sex couples, marking another milestone in the LGBTQ community’s fight against discrimination in the city.
The Court of Final Appeal on Tuesday dismissed the government’s appeals seeking to preserve the discriminatory housing policies and intestacy laws, which were declared unconstitutional following three successful judicial challenges.
Litigant Nick Infinger earlier won a challenge over the Housing Authority’s refusal to allow him and his same-sex partner to apply for a public rental flat as a family.
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Married couple Henry Li Yik-ho and Edgar Ng Hon-lam, who has died, clinched a victory in another judicial review targeting the authority’s decision to bar same-sex spouses from living together in subsidised flats under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS).
Li and Ng were also on the winning side in a third challenge over two ordinances that prevented same-sex couples from bequeathing their properties to their surviving partners and introduced an extra hurdle for them to apply for financial support from the deceased’s estate.
The Court of First Instance ruled that the differential treatment of the three applicants constituted unjustified discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, which was in breach of their right to equality under the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.
The government failed to overturn the rulings on a first appeal but was allowed one last chance to put forward its case before the top judges.
The latest judgments followed earlier successes by sexual minorities in the city striving for fair and equal treatment in areas such as taxation, civil servants’ benefits and the ability to use their preferred gender on identification documents.
The limited rights now enjoyed by gay couples are mostly achieved by LGBTQ activists taking the authorities to court through judicial challenges in recent years, pushing back in a piecemeal approach.
The Court of Final Appeal last year gave the government two years to formulate a legal framework for recognising same-sex relationships after finding its failure to acknowledge such unions violated the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. The government has yet to offer an update on the progress.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Housing Authority wins bid to ask Hong Kong’s highest court to quash ruling giving same-sex couples right to pass on public housing to spouses
- Hong Kong LGBTQ rights: court upholds rulings that favour housing benefits for same-sex couples
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