Hong Kong court rules that gay couples get equal housing rights

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing saying that it was “discriminatory in nature” and a complete denial of such couples’ rights.

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing saying that it was "discriminatory in nature" and a complete denial of such couples' rights.

The ruling by Hong Kong's Court of Appeal is the latest in a series of legal breakthroughs for gay rights advocates in the global financial hub this year.

The government had challenged two High Court rulings that it was "unconstitutional and unlawful" for the city's housing authority to exclude same-sex couples who married abroad from public housing.

The appeal involved two cases, one in which the authority had declined to consider a permanent resident's application to rent a public flat with his husband, because their marriage in Canada was not recognised in Hong Kong.

The other involved a same-sex couple who were denied joint-ownership of a government-subsidised flat by the authority because their marriage in Britain was not recognised in Hong Kong.

Court of Appeal justices Jeremy Poon, Aarif Barma and Thomas Au said in a written judgment that the authority's treatment of gay married couples was "discriminatory in nature" and they should be afforded equal treatment.

"The differential treatment in the present cases is a more severe form of indirect discrimination than most cases because the criterion is one which same-sex couples can never meet," the judges said in their ruling.