In a judgment delivered today the German Federal Constitutional Court has held that the ban of successive adoption in same-sex registered couples violates fundamental rights. Thus registered partners will be able to adopt children which their same-sex partner has adopted before so that both partners are sharing joint legal parenthood, what so far has been a privilege exclusively for married couples of opposite gender. For details and for the full text of the judgment see: www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de

In its judgment delivered today in the case X et al. v Austria the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that Austria violated the European Convention on Human Rights by banning step-parent adoption in same-sex couples. The judgment was taken by a majority of 10 against 7. The applicant family have been represented by ECSOL-co-coordinator Dr. Helmut Graupner. For details, for the full text of the judgment and for the webcast of the two oral hearings see: www.echr.coe.int

Rechtskomitee LAMBDA sees governing coalition disgraced.

In a decision delivered today the Austrian Constitutional Court has ordered to apply the same ceremony (wedding vow, witnesses etc.) for the formation of registered partnerships as for marriage. And it started proceedings to repeal the law prohibiting the performance registered partnerships outside the authority´s office-rooms. Rechtskomitee LAMBDA (RKL), Austria’s LGBT civil rights organisation, welcomes the decision and sees the federal governing coalition disgraced as just last month they have passed this law anew.

Ms Ladele was a Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and Mr McFarlane a Relate counselor. They complained about their dismissal, confirmed by the British courts, for refusing to carry out certain of their duties which they considered would condone homosexuality.

The Court has held, it could not be said that national courts had failed to strike a fair balance when they upheld the employers’ decisions to bring disciplinary proceedings. In each case the employer was pursuing a policy of nondiscrimination against service-users, and the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sexual orientation was also protected under the Convention.

Eweida v UK: Documents