LGBTQ+ Wins Equal Housing Rights Battle in Hong Kong

• Hong Kong Court of Appeal rejects bid to deny public housing to same-sex couples.
• Government’s actions labeled “discriminatory.”
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• Victory for LGBTQ+ rights in Hong Kong.

In a significant development for LGBTQ+ rights in Hong Kong, a government attempt to block same-sex married couples from accessing public housing has been rejected by the Hong Kong Court of Appeal.

The court labeled the government’s actions as “discriminatory” and a violation of the rights of these couples.

This decision is the latest in a series of legal victories for advocates of gay rights in the global financial center.

The government’s challenge was in response to two earlier High Court rulings, which deemed it “unconstitutional and unlawful” for the city’s housing authority to exclude same-sex couples who had married abroad from public housing.

The cases that led to this appeal involved a permanent resident who was denied the opportunity to rent a public flat with his husband because their marriage in Canada was not recognized in Hong Kong.

Another case featured a same-sex couple who were denied joint-ownership of a government-subsidized flat because their marriage in Britain was not acknowledged in Hong Kong.

In their written judgment, Court of Appeal justices Jeremy Poon, Aarif Barma, and Thomas Au asserted that the housing authority’s treatment of married gay couples amounted to discrimination, and they emphasized the importance of providing equal treatment for these couples.

Henry Li, one of the individuals involved in the second case, expressed his approval of the ruling in a Facebook post.