Govt tries one last time to appeal public housing rights of same-sex couples

The Court of Appeal will hand down a decision next Monday on whether to permit the government to file an appeal against homosexual married couples over their rights to apply and inherit public and subsidized housing one last time. 

This came after the High Court's Court of First Instance ruled in favor of the homosexual couples in all three cases. The Housing Authority and the Department of Justice had filed appeals against previous rulings but were all rejected by the Court of Appeal. 

The three cases will go straight to the Court of Final Appeal if the government’s applications are granted this time. 

The first case stemmed from a rejected application for public rental housing by Nick Infinger and his husband, who got married in Canada in 2018. Although fulfilling the income test, the HA said they failed to fall within the definition of a “married couple”. 

In the second case, late Edgar Ng Hon-lam and Henry Li Yik-ho bought a subsidized home through the Green Form after getting married in the UK in 2017. Yet, they were informed by the HA that the same-sex spouse cannot be treated as a family member and live in the flat. 

The third case was the judicial review filed by late Ng to challenge the discrimination against same-sex couples who are excluded from the definition of “valid marriage” under the Intestates’ Estates Ordinance and Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Ordinance. 

In a separate case by gay rights activist Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit, the Court of Final Appeal earlier ordered the government to establish an alternative framework for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships to provide couples with their appropriate rights and obligations within two years.