Last week, the Hong Kong government proposed a system that would finally allow same-sex partnerships to be legally recognised in the city, which would grant queer couples more rights that are simply a given for heterosexual marriages and partnerships.
The catch is that Hong Kong will still not be offering the option for same-sex partnerships to be officiated here – queer couples will have to get married, form civil partnerships or civil unions overseas first. According to a document submitted to the legislature by the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, the union of adult same-sex couples needs to be performed in a jurisdiction where they are legally recognised, and at least one of the pair has to be a Hong Kong resident for our government to recognise their partnership back in the city.
After being registered, couples can enjoy rights such as making medical decisions for their partners with consent and handling their affairs in the event of death, such as claiming their bodies and deciding what to do with their remains. This proposal comes as our government’s response to being ordered back in September 2023 to set up a legal framework working towards recognising the rights of homosexual couples in the city.
While this is a step in the right direction, the proposal is definitely not without its setbacks. Not all rights that heterosexual couples enjoy are granted to same-sex couples yet, such as equal prison visiting rights. Activist Jimmy Sham, who fought a long legal battle over the recognition of same-sex marriages and was instrumental in the 2023 ruling, questioned why Hong Kong’s homosexual couples had to register their union overseas to get recognition locally, when heterosexual couples don’t have to do so. This also means that there’s a financial barrier to travelling overseas and registering for foreign legal documents, when heterosexual Hongkongers have never had to jump through these hoops.
The government is expected to table a bill at a later date, and hopefully there will be more details and amendments that address obvious inequalities for the LGBTQIA+ community and reflect our society’s rising acceptance of queer people.
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