Judge rules banning same-sex marriages violates equality principle
The Tokyo High Court ruled on Wednesday that not allowing same-sex couples to marry is unconstitutional, a decision that the plaintiffs have called “historic” and which comes after a court in Sapporo also ruled against this measure.
This resolution is part of a series of lawsuits filed before five courts across the country in an attempt by the LGBT community to claim their rights, which are not protected in Japan.
However, this latest ruling stands out for the use of stronger language compared to the previous ones, which declared that national laws prohibiting gay marriage violate the Japanese Constitution.
Now, the president of the court, Sonoe Taniguchi, has stated that allowing only heterosexual couples to marry violates the principle of equality, but has rejected the requests for compensation presented by the plaintiffs.
However, she has specified that this prohibition violates article 14 of the Magna Carta, which guarantees the right to equality, and the second clause of article 24, which establishes that laws on marriage must be based on individual dignity.
“Issues related to marriage and family must take into account various factors, including state traditions and public sentiment,” says the ruling. “But even if this is taken into account, there is no rational basis for distinguishing whether or not people are entitled to legal benefits based on sexual orientation, a characteristic that cannot be chosen or changed at will,” she clarified.
This ruling also refers to the possibility of revising the current legislation to grant these couples the same rights, according to information collected by the newspaper ‘The Japan Times’. Meanwhile, the government maintains that the Constitution implicitly recognizes that a marriage is only a union between a man and a woman, as Article 24 states that it must be based on “the mutual consent of the parties of both sexes.”
This verdict follows a similar ruling by a Sapporo court in March 2021, which stated that the Civil Code and the family registration law violate constitutional guarantees of equality before the law.
However, other courts have in the past indicated that legislation prohibiting same-sex marriage is constitutional, although some courts have qualified that the absence of a legal system that recognizes such marriages reflects in itself “a state of unconstitutionality.”
