Hong Kong seeks to fight against equal public housing rights for same-sex couples married overseas in top court
Hong Kong Free Press
The Hong Kong government has sought to take a case involving the rights of same-sex couples who married overseas to access public housing to the top court, after it lost an earlier appeal over its denial of such rights.
Daly & Associates, a law firm that represents Henry Li, who with his late partner Edgar Ng brought the original challenge against the Housing Authority, told HKFP on Wednesday that it had received a notice that the authority had decided to seek further appeal.
Last month, the Court of Appeal rejected the Housing Authority’s appeal against two earlier rulings on “all the grounds,” upholding the decisions that denying same-sex couples’ equal rights to public housing was unlawful and unconstitutional.
In the process of pursuing an appeal, the Housing Authority must notify the lawyers of those involved in the case seven days in advance, Daly & Associates told HKFP.
The application, if granted, will take the case to the Court of Final Appeal.
HKFP has reached out to the Housing Authority for comment.
Equal rights to public housing
The appeals rejected last month stemmed from two separate judicial reviews filed in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Nick Infinger launched his legal bid in 2018 after his application for public rental housing was declined by the government. The authorities had said his relationship with his partner, whom he married in Canada in 2018, fell outside the ordinary understanding of “husband” and “wife” as adopted by the Housing Authority.
The other judicial review was lodged in 2019 by Ng, who took his own life in 2020. Ng had challenged the Housing Authority’s refusal to recognise same-sex spouses as “spouses,” or other “family members” of subsidised flat owners who married overseas. Ng and Li married in the UK in 2017.
Li took over his late husband’s legal bid after Ng’s death. After the court’s ruling last month, Li urged the Housing Authority not to further appeal.
“The case had been going on for over four years,” he wrote on Facebook in Chinese. “I sincerely hoped that, after careful consideration, the Housing Authority would not seek further appeal, and let Edgar rest at last.”
HKFP has also reached out to Haldanes, the firm that represents Infinger, for comment.
Whilst same-sex sexual activity was legalised in 1991, Hong Kong has no laws to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination in employment, the provision of goods and services, or from hate speech. Equal marriage remains illegal, although a 2023 survey showed that 60 per cent of Hongkongers support it. Despite repeated government appeals, courts have granted those who married – or who entered civil partnerships – abroad some recognition in terms of tax, spousal visas and public housing.
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