The plaintiffs’ lawyers and supporters on Wednesday unveiled a banner that read “the first important step towards equality in marriage” before the district court in Sapporo, Japan.
Photo:
Kyodo / Reuters
TOKYO – A Japanese court has ruled for the first time that the country’s constitution gives same-sex couples the right to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage, a revolutionary decision in a region of the world that generally bans same-sex marriage.
The district court in the northern city of Sapporo ruled in a case brought by gay couples requesting a marriage license. The group of three judges said the government’s refusal to grant them a license violated the Japanese constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment under the law. However, the court held that the applicants were not entitled to compensation.
Other district courts in Japan are hearing similar cases, and Wednesday’s ruling is subject to appeal, which means the final solution to the issue will not be adopted for some time.
The panel of three judges said that while the Japanese parliament had a wide margin of maneuver in passing marriage laws, it “exceeded the limits of discretion” in its discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples. It is said that the current law is based on now discredited notions of homosexuality as a disease.
The Court left open the possibility for Parliament to set up a separate marriage or union system for same-sex couples. He said that if such a system provided legal protection for same-sex couples, as does the current marriage system for heterosexual couples, a constitutional constitution could be adopted.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in the United States nationally since a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, but is not legal in most of Asia. The Taiwanese parliament passed the first same-sex marriage law in Asia in 2019, following a similar move by the Australian Parliament in 2017.
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