Hong Kong's top court has affirmed earlier court rulings granting subsidised housing benefits to same-sex couples, after finding current policies discriminatory and unconstitutional. The five-judge panel of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), led by Chief Justice Andrew Cheung, unanimously rejected an appeal from the Housing Authority. Lower courts had granted the rights to subsidised housing benefits to two same-sex couples married overseas. The CFA on Tuesday rejected the Housing Authority's argument that under the Basic Law, only opposite-sex married couples are entitled to apply for public housing, overriding provisions on equality. The judges held that while only opposite-sex couples can obtain the legal status of marriage under Hong Kong's constitutional framework, this doesn't shield housing policies from scrutiny under equality provisions. "Entitlements to apply for [public rental housing] units and [Home Ownership Scheme] flats are only some of those [legal] rights, but they do not go to the status of marriage itself," the judgement read. "[The Basic Law article on marriage] therefore does not remove the subject Housing Authority policies from the purview of the equality provisions." The housing body had also argued that same-sex and heterosexual married couples weren't comparable because the latter can give birth, therefore supporting the government's policy objective on population growth. The judges rejected this argument, saying same-sex couples can adopt children or have children through artificial means. They also said they found the authority's policies aimed at supporting traditional family to be "disproportionate and unjustified", saying it didn't offer enough evidence over their arguments. The judges said the authority did not address the likely effect on housing supply or the impact on opposite-sex couples if the policies were relaxed. The CFA dismissed the authority's appeal and ordered it to pay for the legal costs of the respondents. The court also ruled against the government in a related case regarding the inheritance of property, saying excluding same-sex couples married overseas from inheritance amounted to unlawful discrimination.
