Slovenia: Court bans same-sex marriages, adoptions
Ljubljana, Slovenia — Slovenia’s highest court has ruled that the small European country’s ban on same-sex marriage and child adoption is unconstitutional, and ordered its parliament to amend the law within six months to ensure them.
On Friday, the judges of the Constitutional Court ruled on both cases by 6 to 3 and considered that the Slovenian laws, which only allow marriages and adoptions of the opposite sex, violate the constitutional ban on discrimination.
Discrimination against same-sex couples “cannot be justified by the traditional meaning of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, nor by the special protection of the family,” reads the judgment, which is summarized by the Slovenian Press Agency.
The ruling, which the court said goes into effect immediately, represents a cornerstone for LGBTQ rights in Central and Eastern Europe, where several countries have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and none have so far allowed same-sex couples to marry.
In 2016, the Estonian government came closest, when it agreed to recognize same-sex unions concluded in other countries. Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Montenegro have laws that establish same-sex partnerships.
The court ruling in Slovenia, which was a communist-ruled socialist republic as part of the former Yugoslavia before becoming an independent country in 1991, came just weeks after a liberal national government took over, replacing one that had led by right-wing conservatives.
While the court gave legislators six months to adapt the existing legislation to the ruling, the requested changes will be prepared in a week or two, said Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Luka Mesec.
“The Constitutional Court ordered us to do this, and we will do it with the greatest pleasure,” Mesec said.
The court took up this issue following complaints from two same-sex couples who could not marry or meet the conditions for adopting children.
The decision “does not diminish the importance of traditional marriage as a union between a man and a woman, nor does it change the conditions under which people of the opposite sex marry,” the judges said. “All this means that same-sex partners can now marry in the same way that heterosexual partners can.”