A European human rights court just ruled three same-sex couples were wrongly denied their right to marry. What happens now?
The European Court of Human Rights just ruled that three same-sex couples were wrongly denied their human rights because Italy provided them neither legal protections nor recognition when refusing them the right to marry. The ruling was unanimous.
“The legal protection currently available to same-sex couples in Italy … did not only fail to provide for the core needs relevant to a couple in a stable committed relationship, but it was also not sufficiently reliable,” the European Court of Human Rights said in its ruling, as AFP reports.
“We are delighted,†Enrico Oliari, the head of an Italian gay rights group, said in a statement. “We arrived at this conclusion at the end of a battle that began 18 years ago with our association and an eight-year fight in the courtroom.â€
Today’s ruling, The Guardian reports, “said gay couples were essentially forced to live double lives in Italy: they could live openly in their relationships, but they did not receive any official recognition of their status as a family.”
That will not change with this ruling, which does not legally bind Italy to extend the institution of marriage to same-sex couples.
But it does put pressure on the government of Italy, the only major country in Western Europe that neither affords same-sex couples the right to marry, nor allows them to enter in to civil unions.
Human Rights Europe notes that “according to recent surveys, a majority of the Italian population supported legal recognition of
homosexual couples.”
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Image by Amy Schubert via Flickr and a CC license