Landmark ruling for gay rights in Europe

THE European Union’s top court, in a landmark ruling for gay rights in Europe, said yesterday that Romania must grant residence to the American husband of a local man even though the country does not itself permit same-sex marriage.

In a case which has highlighted social differences between western Europe and a more conservative east, the European Court of Justice ruled that Romania must accept the validity of the men’s 2010 Belgian marriage and treat American Clai Hamilton as Adrian Coman’s spouse under EU law.

The case did not touch on the freedom of member states to set their own matrimony laws, although campaigners have called on Brussels to push states to legalize same-sex marriage as a fundamental human right. Rather it upheld rights of EU citizens to move freely across the bloc along with their families.

“Although the member states have the freedom whether or not to authorize marriage between persons of the same sex,” the judges said, “they may not obstruct the freedom of residence of an EU citizen by refusing to grant his same-sex spouse, a national of a country that is not an EU member state, a derived right of residence in their territory.”

The case arose because Hamilton’s right as a non-EU citizen to live in Romania permanently was dependent on his status as Coman’s spouse. Coman challenged a Romanian decision to limit Hamilton’s residence to a three-month visa and a Romanian court referred the matter to the ECJ in Luxembourg.

“We can now look in the eyes of any public official in Romania and across the EU with certainty that our relationship is equally valuable and equally relevant for the purpose of free movement within the EU,” Coman said.