Slovenian Court Strikes Down Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Court rules bans on marriage and adoption are unconstitutional, and orders Parliament to adopt laws protecting LGBTQ rights.
A recent court ruling in Slovenia — a small eastern European country and former member of the Communist nation of Yugoslavia, has struck down bans restricting the right of LGBTQ couples to wed and raise children together.
Earlier this month, on July 8, the country’s Constitutional Court voted 6-3, finding that bans on same-sex marriage and same-sex adopting children are unconstitutional. According to ABC News, the court’s ruling also “ordered its parliament to amend the law within six months to guarantee” same-sex couples will be able to legally marry, adopt children, and have their relationships acknowledged as valid by the state.
Slovenia and other eastern European countries, in general, are fairly conservative on social issues and have been hesitant to adopt specific policies that protect their LGBTQ citizens. In fact, Slovenia is first eastern European country to have its court approve a ruling that — at least, in theory — fully legalizes same sex marriage and adoption.
Prior to this ruling, Total Slovenia News reported that same-sex partners had been “confined to civil unions, which gave the partners some but not all the rights of heterosexual partners.” But now, same-sex partners can enjoy the same marriage and adoption rights in Slovenia that are already bestowed upon their heterosexual counterparts.
Heretofore, the closest that any eastern European country has come to fully legalizing same-sex marriage was in 2016, when Estonia’s government agreed to recognize same-sex unions legally performed in other nations.
For Slovenia, now that the courts have determined that samex-marriage and adoption bans are unconstitutional, all that remains is for the country’s parliament to adopt legislation enshrining those rights into law. While, in certain circumstances, this may present a challenge, it would appear the government is perfectly willing to follow the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
Jurist reported that Slovenian Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Luka Mesec “welcomed this decision.”
“The Constitutional Court orders us to eliminate this unconstitutionality. We will do so as soon as possible, the law is already being prepared,” Mesec stated, according to a tweet posted by the Slovenian government.
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