Opposite-sex couples are discriminated against because they cannot enter into a civil partnership, the Supreme Court has held.
Same-sex couples were given state recognition of their relationship for the first time in 2004, when the Civil Partnership Act came into force. However, they had to wait until the enactment of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 before they could marry. Many civil partners have since converted their relationship status to marriage and the government is considering phasing out civil partnership.
However, opposite-sex couple Rebecca Hannah Steinfeld and Charles Robin Keidan wished to have a civil partnership.
Five justices unanimously declared the denial of civil partnership incompatible with the couple’s Arts 8 and 14 ECHR rights, in R (Steinfeld and Keidan) v Secretary of State for International Development [2018] UKSC 32.
Graeme Fraser, partner at OGR Stock Denton and Resolution spokesperson on co-habitation, said the decision ‘enables those couples more choice while affording them similar financial security to marriage’.
