by Laura Westbrook

Lawyers and activists have urged the government to take the lead in drawing up a legal framework for the recognition of same-sex relationships in Hong Kong rather than leaving decisions to the courts, which struck down a major case seeking to recognise foreign gay marriages last week.

They accused the administration of leaving the burden on people to mount legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, which could be expensive, time-consuming and emotionally draining for plaintiffs.

The LGBT community was disappointed by the High Court’s ruling on September 18 when it rejected a bid by civic rights activist Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit, who filed a lawsuit for Hong Kong to recognise foreign same-sex marriages. Sham argued that the government’s decision not to recognise marriages performed overseas, such as his, which was registered in New York, violated the right to equality guaranteed by Article 25 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

However, Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming found Sham’s attempt to achieve complete parity of legal recognition “too ambitious” and “fundamentally flawed” when the basic question of whether there was differential treatment “cannot be answered in a vacuum”, without subject matter or context, which Hong Kong’s top court had ruled as a “crucial” consideration.

Sham was considering whether to file an appeal, according to a source. Plaintiffs have 28 days to do so for final hearings. The community did, however, see a breakthrough that day in a separate case when Edgar Ng Hon-lam won his challenge seeking equal inheritance rights for his partner. Ng applied for judicial review in November 2019 after finding out his husband, Henry Li Yik-ho, would be unable to inherit their home as the marriage was not legally recognised in Hong Kong. Read more via SCMP