Japan Court Says Not Approving Same-Sex Marriage Unconstitutional

Sapporo, March 17 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese court said Wednesday that the lack of official recognition for same-sex marriage in the country is unconstitutional, in the first ruling on a string of lawsuits related to same-sex marriage across the country. In the ruling, Sapporo District Court dismissed a claim by three same-sex couples living in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido for damages of 1 million yen per person from the Japanese government. The Sapporo court found that the current situation in which same-sex couples cannot receive legal benefits due to their lack of official recognition violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which ensures legal equality. The rejection of same-sex marriage is "discrimination based on no reasonable grounds," Presiding Judge Tomoko Takebe said. The judge added, however, that as many people in the country have come to view same-sex marriage positively only recently, it has not been easy for the government to acknowledge the unconstitutional situation immediately. On Article 24, which stipulates that "marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes," the judge said it is reasonable to interpret the constitutional clause as referring only to different-sex couples. The Sapporo lawsuit is one of five similar lawsuits filed by a total of 28 people with five district courts. Its plaintiffs are two men in their 40s in the Hokkaido city of Obihiro, a woman in her 20s and another in her 30s in Sapporo, the prefecture's capital, and two other men whose ages have not been disclosed. In Japan, same-sex marriage has not been legalized. The country maintains the position that its Constitution does not presume such a form of marriage. In the Sapporo lawsuit, the plaintiffs claimed that Article 24 guarantees freedom of marriage as a right for everyone, and that it is unconstitutional for only male-female married couples to be entitled to such benefits as spousal tax deductions, as well as inheritance and other rights. They also argued that it is illegal that the Diet, the country's parliament, has neglected to take legislative measures on the issue for so long without proper reason. The national government took the position that the institution of marriage is designed to give legal protection to people who give birth to and raise children while living together. The government insisted that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage is not sexual orientation-based discrimination, as it is possible for homosexual individuals to marry people of the opposite sex. According to the plaintiffs' lawyers, same-sex marriage is allowed in a total of about 30 countries and regions, mainly in the West. In Japan, Tokyo's Shibuya Ward was the first to issue a partnership certificate to a same-sex couple in 2015. Similar certification systems have so far been introduced by about 80 local governments. As of the end of 2020, about 1,500 couples had obtained such certificates. END