Ban on heterosexual civil partnerships in UK ruled discriminatory

UK - A heterosexual couple who were denied the right to enter into a civil partnership have won their claim at the UK’s highest court that they have suffered discrimination. Justices at the supreme court unanimously found in favor of Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan in a decision that will put pressure on the government to change the law. The pair, from west London, who believe that the institution of marriage is patriarchal and sexist, have fought a prolonged legal campaign to open up civil partnerships to oppositesex couples. At present, heterosexual couples may only marry; same-sex couples can either marry or take up a civil partnership. Keidan and Steinfeld had lost their earlier legal challenges at both the high court and the court of appeal. In their decision, the five supreme court justices formally declared that the ban preventing opposite-sex couples from obtaining a civil partnership was incompatible with their human rights and amounted to discrimination. “The interests of the community in denying those different-sex couples who have a genuine objection to being married the opportunity to enter into a civil partnership are unspecified and not easy to envisage,” their ruling said. “In contrast, the denial of those rights for an indefinite period may have far-reaching consequences for those who wish to avail themselves and who are entitled to assert them now.”

The government should have eliminated the inequality of treatment between same-sex and opposite-sex partners when the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act came into force in 2013, the judges said. “This could have been done by abolishing civil partnerships or by instantaneously extending them to different-sex couples … Taking time to evaluate whether to abolish or extend could never amount to a legitimate aim for the continuance of the discrimination.” “... Moreover, undertaking ‘research with people who are current civil partners to understand their views on civil partnership and marriage and their future intentions and preferences’ [as the government argued] is at best of dubious relevance to the question of whether the continuing discrimination against different sex couples can be defended.” When in office, the former equalities minister Justine Greening proposed extending civil partnerships to oppositesex couples and building “a consensus for legislation” and drew up internal policy documents in early 2017 to prepare for the change.

(The Guardian)