The European Court of Human Rights has refused a Grand Chamber hearing on the Austrian same-sex marriage case Schalk & Kopf, with the effect that this Chamber judgment is now final.
This judgment had found that there was no breach of the Convention where the Austrian government refused to permit a same-sex couple to contract marriage. The Court noted the absence of anything approaching a European consensus on same-sex marriage; 6/47 states permit same-sex marriage. They held that although Article 12, which grants the right to marry, was not inapplicable in principle to same-sex couples, it did not impose an obligation to grant same-sex couples access to marriage. However, the Court proceeded to find that same-sex couples could enjoy the protection of "family life" rights under Article 8. This was in view of a "rapid evolution of social attitudes towards same sex couples" in many member states. Here in Ireland, the Zappone & Gilligan case is expected to be heard before the Supreme Court in February 2011.
Meanwhile the EU Parliament has supported plans to enable the mutual recognition of same-sex marriages and civil partnerships throughout the EU and the EU Commission is to propose ways to enable such recognition. Please click here to see the press release.
Please click here to see the EU Fundamental Rights Agency's report on Homophobia, Transphobia, and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. FRA has called on EU member states to "abolish divorce and genital surgery as preconditions to the rectification of the recorded sex or alteration of name on official documents".
In its submission to the Gender Recognition Advisory Group, the Free Legal Advice Centres submitted that divorce should not be necessary to deal with a political anomaly affecting a small number of persons.
Finally, please click here to read about MarriagEquality's work and their Advocate of the Month Evan Wolfson.