Judge rules that the government’s policies favouring heterosexual couples ‘cannot be justified’. Hong Kong’s top court has ruled to affirm housing and inheritance rights for same-sex couples, siding against the government in a victory for the city’s LGBTQ community. Chief Justice Andrew Cheung wrote in two rulings on Tuesday that the Court of Final Appeal had unanimously dismissed appeals brought by the Hong Kong government against earlier decisions affirming LGBTQ rights. Government lawyer Monica Carss-Frisk had argued that Hong Kong’s housing policy was designed to support “procreation” among opposite-sex partners. But in his ruling, Cheung said policies excluding same-sex couples from public rental flats and subsidised flats sold under the city’s Home Ownership Scheme “cannot be justified”. “[For] needy same-sex married couples who cannot afford private rental accommodation, the [government’s] exclusionary policy could well mean depriving them of any realistic opportunity of sharing family life under the same roof at all,” Cheung said. On the issue of inheritance, judges Joseph Fok and Roberto Ribeiro wrote in Tuesday’s ruling that authorities had also “failed to justify the differential treatment” of same-sex couples.
via al jazeera: Hong Kong’s top court rules in favour of same-sex couple rights
