The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Ukraine on Thursday for discrimination and violation of the right to respect for private life because of the lack of legal recognition and protection of homosexual couples in the country.
The Court, which monitors compliance with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights in the 46 States that have ratified it, had been seized by a couple of Ukrainian men.
They had tried to get married in Ukraine and had applied for seven different civil status services without ever succeeding, but were unsuccessful on the grounds that the Ukrainian Constitution and the Family Code expressly define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
They also argue that it was impossible for them to enter into any other type of civil union recognizing their relationship, although a “family union” is available to unmarried heterosexual couples.
The magistrates of the ECHR, who sit in Strasbourg, considered that the two complainants were treated differently from heterosexual couples, on “the sole basis” of their sexual orientation.
They judge that Kyiv has not provided any justification for this difference in treatment, and that the reason given by the Ukrainian government for the protection of the “traditional family” does not constitute “a valid reason” justifying the refusal of any recognition and legal protection. same-sex couples.
If the Ukrainian State is “free to restrict access to marriage to heterosexual couples only”, continues the Court, it does not justify the exclusion of homosexual couples from “any legal regime”.
The seven European judges making up the panel unanimously concluded that this difference in treatment constituted discrimination based on sexual orientation, in violation of the rights enshrined in the Convention guaranteeing respect for private life (Article 8) and prohibiting discrimination (article 14).
They therefore ordered Kyiv to pay 5,000 euros to each of the plaintiffs in compensation for “moral damage”.