Italy in Breach of ECHR* Same Sex Union Rights
*European Commission Human Rights
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| The Gay Pride Parade in Milan last month Photo: Barcroft |
The court ruled that although states should be allowed flexibility to decide how to handle the question of rights for same-sex couples, Italy violated the article of the European Convention on Human Rights establishing the “right to respect for private and family life” by failing to provide a “specific legal framework providing for the recognition and protection of their same-sex unions”.
This is the first time the ECHR states that legal recognition of same-sex unions (civil union or registered partnership) should be available to same-sex couples.
The three couples argued that they suffered discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
A number of Italian municipalities, including Rome, have offered registration of same-sex marriages contracted overseas – but that was dismissed by the court as having “merely symbolic and did not confer any rights on same-sex couples”, including inheritance rights.
‘The European Court has said in Italy there is a violation of human rights, and this is not honorable for a large country like ours, ‘ Scalfarotto has said. The judges in Strasbourg said that Italy’s delay was no longer tolerable. The court urged Italy to provide such recognition, and ordered it to pay damages and compensation to the case’s plaintiffs. The court said that only 24 of them have legislation on same-sex unions.
Italy remains the only major country in Western Europe which does not have legal protections for cohabiting same-sex couples, or same-sex marriage.
The European Court of Human Rights was set up in 1959 and aims to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law across the continent.
The ruling will prove to be controversial in Italy, where the coalition government of centre-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged to put forward legislation to recognise civil partnerships.
But recent opinion polls have shown a significant swing in favor of reform, following a pattern seen in Ireland, like Italy a strongly Catholic country, which overwhelmingly voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriages in May.
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