The Court of Strasbourg ruled that Poland violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees respect for private and household life by not ensuring the designation and legal protection of single-sex unions. The judgement afraid a complaint of 5 same-sex couples, including Przybyszewska and others against Poland, announced on Tuesday. In addition to the infringement of Article 8, the complainants pointed out that there was a breach of the prohibition of discrimination against Article 14 of the Convention, but ETPC considered that there was no request to regulation on this issue either.
Although only 2 couples (€20 and 317) were granted a cash settlement, the uncovering of the infringement itself is crucial. The Court held that Poland did not fulfil its work to supply the applicants with a legal framework guaranteeing the designation and protection of their monosexual relationships. This in turn caused the complainants to be incapable to regulate key aspects of their lives, specified as property, maintenance, taxation and inheritance issues.
ETPCz stressed that the Convention does not require states to introduce same-sex marriages but imposes a work on them to recognise their rights. The judges rejected the argument of the Polish government, which defended the "traditional concept of matrimony as a union of women and men" as the social and legal heritage of Poland.
It is worth noting that Poland, alongside Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, is 1 of the 5 countries of the European Union which does not recognise any form of formal monosexual union. In contrast, in Estonia, this summer, government was adopted to legalise single-sex marriages that will enter into force next year.
Tuesday's judgement of the ETPCz is not amazing in the context of earlier decisions of this tribunal. It is worth referring to the 2015 case ‘Oliari v Italy’, where the Court found infringement of the Convention by Italy, besides due to the refusal to recognise a single-sex union. Italian judges, as in Poland, referred to the constitution and laws, claiming that there was no legal framework to recognise specified a relationship. However, Italy adopted a law legalising single-sex partnerships in May the following year.
Will Poland go this way? The change of government and parliamentary majority can fill this issue with hope. Until now, ETPC judgments have not been implemented mainly due to deficiency of political will, especially in fresh years of the regulation of the United Right. The number of judgments against Poland, including those deemed unexecuted or monitored by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, is steadily increasing. In consequence to this problem, the National Council of Legal Advisers prepared assumptions for a bill to improve the implementation of Strasbourg rulings.
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Daniel Głogowski
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ETPCz ordered Poland to regulate same-sex partnerships:
