Same-sex marriage and Article 3 ECHR: a new approach to addressing marriage discrimination

Paul Johnson and Silvia Falcetta

During recent months, we have been carrying out research on the utility of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights for addressing discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Article 3 of the Convention provides the absolute guarantee that “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Given the scope of this guarantee, one might expect that Article 3 would have been a key provision for addressing the wide spectrum of ill-treatment to which individuals have been subjected because of their sexual orientation. However, since the Convention entered into force in 1953, Article 3 has rarely been utilized to address sexual orientation discrimination, and it was not until 2012 that a complaint brought under Article 3 about sexual orientation discrimination succeeded in the European Court of Human Rights.

In an article to be published in European Law Review, we provide a critical analysis of the history and evolution of the Court’s Article 3 jurisprudence in order to assess the ways in which this has developed the protection of sexual minorities in Europe. We identify major gaps in this protection, most notably in respect of asylum, and argue that the Court’s Article 3 jurisprudence should be further evolved to address these.

A key focus of our research is on how sexual minorities might better and more creatively use Article 3 of the Convention in the future to address discrimination against them. One area of discrimination we focus on specifically is in respect of marriage.

Article 3 and same-sex marriage

Article 3 of the Convention has never been invoked in a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights about the lack of access to or legal recognition of same-sex marriage. This is not wholly surprising because the Convention contains a substantive provision on marriage, enshrined in Article 12, which has been the principal focus of same-sex marriage cases both in the Court and in domestic courts in Council of Europe states. However, the key problem for those seeking marriage equality under Article 12 of the Convention is that the Court has held that this provision is founded on the concept of a “union between partners of different sex” (Schalk and Kopf v Austria, para 55) and has consistently held that it “does not impose an obligation on [a] Government to grant a same-sex couple […] access to marriage” (Oliari and Others v Italy, para 192). As a consequence, the Court maintains the inflexible view that same-sex couples have no recourse under Article 12 to being excluded from the rights and benefits attached to marriage.

The question that arises, therefore, is how it might be possible for same-sex couples to break down the “heteronormative firewall” that the Court has built around marriage. We argue that Article 3 provides such a possibility. It does so, we suggest, because Article 3 offers the opportunity to address and eradicate marriage discrimination from the standpoint of “human dignity”, respect for which is the “very essence of the Convention” (Bouyid v Belgium [GC], para 89) and “one of the most fundamental values of democratic society” (Z. and Others v the United Kingdom [GC], para 73).

The close connection between the right to marry and respect for human dignity has been thoroughly explored by courts as well as by scholars. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States of America recognized that “the transcendent importance of marriage” is the “nobility and dignity” it offers to couples, and that same-sex couples seeking access to marriage are asking “for equal dignity in the eyes of the law” (Obergefell v Hodges, 576 U.S._ (2015) 3 and 28). We think that when same-sex couples go to the European Court of Human Rights with complaints about marriage discrimination they are highlighting forms of subjective distress and injurious effects that strike at the very core of their human dignity.

Our proposition is that the damage to human dignity created by exclusion from marriage can be argued to amount to degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention. Through a comprehensive assessment of the Court’s jurisprudence, we consider it reasonable and persuasive to argue that being denied access to marriage, on the basis of sexual orientation, causes forms of personal suffering and humiliation that reach the threshold set by the Court to be deemed degrading treatment under Article 3. This is because there are an extensive number of ways in which, as a result of being excluded from marriage, same-sex couples suffer humiliation and debasement in their own eyes and the eyes of others, are driven to act against their will or conscience, are treated with a lack of respect, and are diminished in the societies in which they live – forms of suffering which, in other contexts, have been held by the Court to be degrading within the terms of Article 3 (M.C. and A.C. v Romania, para 108).

We recognize that some may argue against our claim that denying same-sex couples access to marry amounts to degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. We seek to address, in our article, some of the legal and other arguments that might be put forward against our proposition. However, when we consider the types of treatment that the Court has considered as “degrading” in the past – for example, depriving a person in prison of his reading glasses (Slyusarev v Russia, paras 43-44) – we argue that there is scope to extend this provision to recognize the exclusion from marriage as a form of ill-treatment that is prohibited by the Convention.

The great value of seeking to address the issue of same-sex marriage under Article 3 is that it escapes the confines of Article 12 and, in doing so, avoids historical questions concerning whether the wording of the right to marry refers only to unions between men and women. This may be useful in the domestic courts, as well as the European Court of Human Rights.

For example, in cases concerning marriage discrimination in Northern Ireland, although it was recognized that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage created “psychiatric damage caused by isolation, insult and disapproval”, the High Court was “driven to conclude that the Convention rights of the applicants have not been violated” because “the Strasbourg Court does not recognise a ‘right’ to same sex marriage” (Close et al [2017] NIQB 79). The High Court reached this conclusion principally by considering the issue under Article 12 of the Convention and following the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on that Article. Our view is that a more fruitful way of addressing the “psychiatric damage caused by isolation, insult and disapproval” caused by excluding same-sex couples from marriage is to recognize that such “damage” is the result of a form of degrading treatment that is prohibited by the Convention under Article 3.

Reading our research

Our research will be published in European Law Review in mid 2018. However, any academic or practitioner who would like a pre-print copy of the article can request one from silvia.falcetta@york.ac.uk

18 year anniversary of "gays in the military" ECHR judgments

Young people joining the UK armed forces today may know little or nothing of the time when being gay in the British Army, Royal Air Force, or Royal Navy and Marines could have led to a term of imprisonment and/or discharge. 

Today, thankfully, gay men and lesbians are welcome to serve in the UK armed forces and enjoy protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The Army's commitment to Pride this year is just one example of the transformation in attitudes towards inclusiveness in the armed forces in respect of sexual orientation. 

The acceptance of lesbians and gay men in the UK armed forces is largely the result of ground-breaking judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights 18 years ago this month. 

The judgments in Lustig-Prean and Beckett v the United Kingdom and Smith and Grady v the United Kingdom responded to complaints by four gay applicants - John Beckett, Graeme Grady, Duncan Lustig-Prean, and Jeanette Smith - about their treatment by the armed forces after they had been reported to and investigated by ‘service police’ in relation to their sexual orientation. All four endured extensive and intrusive investigations and were subsequently administratively discharged (sacked) because of their sexual orientation.

Prior history

These cases were not the first time that gay service personnel had gone to Strasbourg with a complaint about sexual orientation discrimination. 

The first person to take such a complaint was the applicant in B. v the United Kingdom, a male non-commissioned officer who had served in the British Army for eight years. He complained about his conviction for consensual homosexual acts committed in private on separate occasions with a gunner in his regiment and a civilian. The applicant, who had an exemplary military record, was convicted of ‘disgraceful conduct of a cruel, indecent or unnatural kind’ and was sentenced to a reduction in rank and to nine months’ imprisonment with corrective military training, followed by dishonourable discharge. 

The former European Commission of Human Rights responded to this complaint in 1983 by dismissing it on the basis that the ‘court-marital and dismissal from the service can be considered “necessary in a democratic society” for the “protection of morals” and also “for the prevention of disorder” in the context of military service’.

In 1991, the House of Commons Select Committee responsible for scrutinising the quinquennial Armed Forces Bill recommended that ‘homosexual activity of a kind that is legal in civilian law should not constitute an offence under Service law’. In reaching that conclusion, the Committee took evidence from, among others, a founding member of Stonewall, Michael Cashman (now Lord Cashman), and co-founder of Rank Outsiders, Robert Ely. As a consequence of the Select Committee’s recommendation, male homosexual acts were partially ‘decriminalized’ in the armed forces in 1994.

However, regardless of the legislative change in 1994, gay men and lesbians could still be discharged from the armed forces for the mere fact of being gay. This was happening at an astounding rate: by my estimation, between the mid 1980s and 1990s, six service personnel were on average discharged from the armed forces per month for the sole reason that they were gay.

The ECtHR 1999 judgments

When John Beckett, Graeme Grady, Duncan Lustig-Prean, and Jeanette Smith went to Strasbourg they did so with the ambition of challenging the legality of their discharge from the armed forces and their treatment during the course of this discharge. 

The judgments in Smith and Grady and Lustig-Prean and Beckett marked a sea change in the Court’s conceptualization of homosexuality. They demonstrated a significant absence of the view, once hegemonic in the former Commission, that homosexual men and homosexual sexual practices represented a social danger that justified their containment and suppression.

The Court stated that it regarded the interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private lives as ‘especially grave’ for a number of reasons. First, the investigation process ‘was of an exceptionally intrusive character’, carried out according to methods based on criminal procedures, and sometimes involving a range of individuals associated with the applicants. For example, Ms Smith’s partner, Margaret Fleming, who was not a member of the armed forces, was interviewed and asked, inter alia, ‘what sexual acts she and her partner performed and whether she and her partner had had sex with their foster daughter’. Secondly, the discharge of the applicants had a ‘profound effect on their careers and prospects’. Thirdly, the policy under which the applicants were discharged was of an ‘absolute and general character’, which operated ‘irrespective of the individual’s conduct or service record’.

As a result of the Court upholding the applicants' complaints in September 1999, the UK government announced in January 2000 that ‘homosexuality will no longer be a bar to service in Britain’s armed forces’. Subsequent to this, the Court upheld complaints lodged by several other gay and lesbian service personnel who had been administratively discharged because of their sexual orientation. These included judgments in Perkins and R. v the United Kingdom and Beck, Copp and Bazeley v the United Kingdom.

Legislative developments since 1999

Recent legislative developments show just how far the UK Parliament has come in respect of gay men and lesbians serving in the armed forces.

In 2016, Parliament took the step of repealing the final piece of anti-gay law relating to the armed forces. I described that process at the time in the Huffington Post; a process in which Duncan Lustig-Prean, of Lustig-Prean and Beckett v the United Kingdom, played an instrumental role.

This year, as part of the legislation that granted posthumous pardons to those persons previously convicted or cautioned for now-repealed (homo)sexual offences, Parliament extended pardons to those convicted of specific service offences. As a result of interventions made by Lord Lexden, these pardons extend back as far as 1661 (the year that 'An Act for the regulation and better government of the navy' stated that if 'any person or persons in or belonging to the Fleet, shall commit the unnatural and detestable Sin of Buggery or Sodomy' they 'shall be punished with death, without mercy').

Remembering brave people

The late, great James Baldwin said: "History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals."

As part of ensuring that this recent history of change in the armed forces remains with us, my small contribution has been to assemble oral histories by some of those who went to Strasbourg with complaints about discrimination.

In the book "Going to Strasbourg", Duncan Lustig-Prean, Graeme Grady, Terence Perkins, Emma Riley, and Kevin Bazeley talk extensively about their experiences of taking their complaints to the Strasbourg Court. And some of these brave people also talk about their experiences in this podcast.

18 years after the judgments in Smith and Grady and Lustig-Prean and Beckett, we can reflect on and give thanks for the tremendous sacrifices and brave deeds of those people who actively changed the legal landscape of the UK and made it possible for gay men and lesbians to serve in the UK armed forces without the fear of institutional persecution.

Would Strasbourg solve the conundrum of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland?

Last week, the High Court of Northern Ireland rejected petitions challenging the prohibition of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. The petitions were brought by two same-sex couples who entered into civil partnerships in 2005 but want to be married couples, and by a man who lawfully married another man in England and wishes his marriage to be recognized in Northern Ireland. The petitioners claim that denying them the opportunity to marry or refusing to recognize a lawful marriage violates their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The context of these cases is the legislative arrangements for marriage in the UK that must, to anyone outside of the UK and most people in the UK, appear byzantine. Same-sex marriage was made lawful in England and Wales by the UK Parliament in 2013, and in Scotland by the Scottish Parliament in 2014. However, the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has competency to deal with the “transferred matter” of marriage in Northern Ireland by virtue of the devolution settlement created by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, has not legislated to make same-sex marriage lawful.

Although a majority of Northern Ireland Assembly Members voted in November 2015 in support of a Private Member’s proposal to call on the Executive to table legislation to allow for same-sex marriage (the vote was Ayes 53 and Noes 52), the proposal was negatived because a “petition of concern” had been submitted by certain Members which meant that the proposal required “cross-community” support rather than a simple majority – which it did not receive. As a consequence, the relevant marriage legislation in Northern Ireland – the Marriage (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 – continues to prohibit marriage if “both parties are of the same sex”.

The High Court of Northern Ireland - Mr Justice O’Hara’s judgments

In rejecting the same-sex marriage petitions, Mr Justice O’Hara recognized “the compelling evidence put before me about the effect on the gay and lesbian community of being treated less favourably than others so repeatedly and for so long” and noted “the psychiatric damage caused by isolation, insult and disapproval”. However, he rejected the petitions on the basis that “[i]t is not the role of a judge to decide on social policy.  That is for the Executive and the Assembly under our constitution.”

Mr Justice O’Hara reached his judgment principally by following the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. He was bound to do so by the requirement of the Human Rights Act 1998 – the legislation which gives the European Convention on Human Rights direct effect in the domestic courts of the UK – that a court determining a question which has arisen in connection with a Convention right must take into account any judgment, decision, declaration or advisory opinion of the Strasbourg Court.

There was, on this basis, little chance that Mr Justice O’Hara was ever going to reach a different conclusion to the one set out in his judgments. He was, as he put it,  “driven to conclude that the Convention rights of the applicants have not been violated” because “the Strasbourg Court does not recognise a ‘right’ to same sex marriage. That being the case, the current statutory provisions in Northern Ireland do not violate any rights. Those rights do not exist in any legal sense.”

Would the European Court of Human Rights reach a different conclusion?

If the petitioners in these cases took their complaints to the UK Supreme Court and that court reached the same conclusion as the High Court of Northern Ireland, would “going to Strasbourg” with these complaints be worthwhile?

The simple answer is that it is almost certain that any complaint of this kind heard in Strasbourg today would fail. This is because the European Court of Human Rights has been consistently clear that “the question whether or not to allow same-sex marriage is left to regulation by the national law of the Contracting State” (Schalk and Kopf v Austria, 2010, para 61) on the basis that, fundamentally, “Article 12 of the Convention [the right to marry] does not impose an obligation on [a] Government to grant a same-sex couple … access to marriage” (Oliari and Others v Italy, 2015, para 192).

However, there is a “twist” in the Northern Ireland cases that may give the applicants some sense of optimism despite the Court’s settled jurisprudence. This relates to the fact that one of the applicants is not claiming the right to marry per se but, rather, the right to have a legally solemnized marriage recognized. This applicant claims that it is a violation of his Convention rights for one jurisdiction of the UK (Northern Ireland) to fail to recognize a marriage that he lawfully entered into in another jurisdiction (England and Wales).

Although the Strasbourg Court has not previously considered a case of this kind – in which the national law of a Contracting State allows same-sex marriage in one jurisdiction but not another – it is unlikely that the Court would interpret the legislative arrangements for same-sex marriage in the UK to be in violation of Convention rights. Although the Northern Ireland cases raise some new legal questions, not least in respect of a difference in treatment based on residence in different jurisdictions of a State, the Strasbourg Court would undoubtedly start from the position that there is no right to same-sex marriage under the Convention.

On this basis, the Strasbourg Court may declare the Northern Ireland complaints inadmissible under Article 12 alone and/or in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention – that has certainly been the Court’s approach in some recent cases brought before it under Article 12 about marriage discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, if the Northern Ireland complaints were declared admissible – which may be more likely because of their “special circumstances” – then the Court would probably find as follows.

Same-sex couples who wish to marry in Northern Ireland

In respect of the complaints by those same-sex couples who are in civil partnerships and wish to get married in Northern Ireland but are prevented from doing so, the Strasbourg Court would probably reiterate its settled view, as recently expressed by its Grand Chamber, that Article 12 of the Convention “secures the fundamental right of a man and woman to marry and to found a family” and, as such, “enshrines the traditional concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman” (Hämäläinen v Finland, 2014, para 96).

On this basis the Court would likely reiterate that Article 12 cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting State to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples. Moreover, the Court would probably conclude that “the question whether or not to allow same-sex marriage is left to regulation by the national law of the Contracting State” (in this case, the national law as determined by the Northern Ireland Assembly) and that the Court must “not rush to substitute its own judgment in place of that of the national authorities, who are best placed to assess and respond to the needs of society” (Schalk and Kopf v Austria, 2010, paras 61-62). Therefore, a complaint under Article 12 alone would likely be rejected.

What about a complaint about discrimination, brought under Article 12 in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention? Clearly there is a difference in treatment between same-sex and different-sex couples in Northern Ireland, and between same-sex couples in Northern Ireland and all other couples in the rest of the UK. Such a complaint would also probably fail because the anti-discrimination provisions in Article 14 have no independent existence and have effect solely in relation to “the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms” safeguarded by the Convention. Since the right to same-sex marriage is not safeguarded by the Convention, any complaint under Article 14 would likely be rejected (see, most recently, Chapin and Charpentier v France, 2016). In addition, attempting to combine Article 14 with Article 8 of the Convention (right to respect for private and family life) would also probably fail (see Schalk and Kopf v Austria, 2010).

Same-sex couples who want a lawful marriage solemnized in England to be recognized in Northern Ireland

In respect of the applicant who claims that denying his same-sex marriage legal recognition in Northern Ireland is a violation of his human rights, there are a number of arguments he could make in Strasbourg. The most obvious argument is that he is legally married but, by virtue of the legislative framework for marriage in the UK, when he travels from one legal jurisdiction to another his marriage is effectively taken away. This was a problem recognized by the United States Supreme Court when it overturned the situation in which a lawful marriage could be “stripped” from a same-sex couple when they “travel across state lines” (Obergefell v Hodges, 576 U. S. ____ (2015) page 6)

Using the argument that a State should not be permitted to “strip” a person of their lawful marriage, the applicant might find some support in the long-standing Strasbourg principle that, although Article 12 “lays down that the exercise of this right [to marry] shall be subject to the national laws of the Contracting States”, a State “must not restrict or reduce the right in such a way or to such an extent that the very essence of the right is impaired” (Rees v the United Kingdom, 1986, para 50).

Would the Strasbourg Court regard the national laws of the UK, which refuse to recognize a lawful same-sex English marriage as a marriage in Northern Ireland, as imposing a restriction or reduction that impairs the very essence of the right to marry? I would suggest not. The reason for this is because the “very essence” principle is relevant only in relation to the scope of Article 12 which, as the Court says, does not extend to same-sex marriage. In 2010, the Court expressed the principle in these terms: “Article 12 secures the fundamental right of a man and woman to marry … It is subject to national laws of the Contracting States but the limitations thereby introduced must not restrict or reduce the right in such a way or to such an extent that the very essence of the right is impaired” (O'Donoghue and Others v the United Kingdom, 2010, para 82). Therefore, if the right to marry relates to marriage between a man and a woman then any restriction or reduction placed on same-sex marriage by national laws would not impair that right.

Another problem for the applicant to contend with is the Strasbourg Court’s comfort with a State depriving a couple of their legal marriage based on the fact that the State does not wish to recognize a same-sex marriage. For instance, the Court declared inadmissible a complaint by a legally married couple who were required to end their different-sex marriage (and transform it into a same-sex civil partnership, if they wished) because one of the couple wanted legal recognition for their gender reassignment. Requiring them to end their marriage because the State did not recognize same-sex marriage was, the couple said, a violation of Article 12 because it impaired the very essence of their right to marry and, importantly, remain married. The Court rejected this complaint on the grounds that Article 12 does not protect same-sex marriage (Parry v the United Kingdom, 2006; see also Hämäläinen v Finland, 2014).

The Court would, I believe, reach a similar conclusion in respect of an English same-sex marriage being transformed into a civil partnership in Northern Ireland against the will of the couple. This is because the Court would likely say that when the national law of the State (the law of England of Wales) provided same-sex couples with the opportunity to marry it did not create a right for same-sex couples to marry under Article 12 of the Convention. As the High Court of Northern Ireland concluded, such a right does not exist in any legal sense. Therefore, requiring a legally married same-sex couple to have their marriage treated as a civil partnership in Northern Ireland does not violate that couple’s human rights.

Moreover, the fact that the UK Parliament explicitly legislated in the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 to require English same-sex marriages to be recognized as civil partnerships in Northern Ireland would probably not be taken by the Strasbourg Court as a negative. On the contrary, the Court’s current position is that same-sex couples should be provided with “a specific legal framework providing for the recognition and protection of their same-sex unions” other than marriage (Oliari and Others v Italy, 2015, para 185). The Court would likely regard the UK as having done a very “good” thing in ensuring that English same-sex marriages are recognized as civil partnerships in Northern Ireland.

For these reasons, if considered today, I think the Strasbourg Court would reject a complaint against the UK for not recognizing a lawful same-sex English marriage in Northern Ireland.

Should the Northern Ireland cases go to Strasbourg?

The fact that complaints may appear likely to fail in Strasbourg should not necessarily deter applicants from making them. When Jeffrey Dudgeon MBE went to Strasbourg to challenge the criminalization of male same-sex sexual acts in Northern Ireland in the mid 1970s (when such acts had been partially decriminalized in England and Wales) Strasbourg had been rejecting similar complaints for over two decades. In Jeffrey Dudgeon’s case, the time was right for Strasbourg to fundamentally change its mind on this issue. As a consequence, Jeffrey Dudgeon achieved a change in the law in Northern Ireland in much the same way that those who may go to Strasbourg about marriage discrimination in Northern Ireland would like to.

The jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court is always subject to evolution and its jurisprudence on same-sex marriage is no exception. Although the Court would probably reject a complaint about marriage discrimination in Northern Ireland today, it may not do so in the future. If same-sex marriage has not been introduced in Northern Ireland by virtue of a UK Supreme Court judgment, by the UK Parliament legislating directly at Northern Ireland, or by the Northern Ireland Assembly legislating itself, then, because time will have passed, the Strasbourg Court may be in a position to change its mind on same-sex marriage. Judges Spano and Bianku explicitly indicated in 2016 that “things may change” in Strasbourg on same-sex marriage (Taddeucci and McCall v Italy, 2016) and, perhaps, such a change may come in time for a Northern Ireland case to be successful.

One thing is certain: the Strasbourg Court will eventually change its mind on the issue of same-sex marriage. As this short film shows, although it often takes a very long time for Strasbourg to recognize the human rights of lesbians and gay men, it does come around on most issues in the end. That is, perhaps, the principal reason for taking complaints to the Strasbourg Court about discrimination based on sexual orientation: even if success is not likely, each complaint keeps the matter before the Court and on its radar. As Mary Simpson, the first woman in the world to make a complaint about sexual orientation discrimination under international human rights law, puts it: “You’ve got to keep chipping away at the paintwork, bit by bit, until you break through.” If a complaint gets to Strasbourg about marriage discrimination in Northern Ireland then such a case will definitely chip away at the paintwork and, perhaps, even break through.

Strasbourg case law prevents success of same-sex marriage petition in Northern Ireland

The High Court of Northern Ireland has today delivered its judgment in In Re X, which is a case relating to same-sex marriage.

The High Court has held that the human rights of a man who entered into a same-sex marriage in England in 2014 (a part of the UK that permits same-sex marriage) have not been violated by virtue of the fact that in Northern Ireland this marriage is not recognised (and is only recognised as a civil partnership).

In reaching this decision, the High Court was significantly influenced by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on same-sex marriage. The Strasbourg Court has repeatedly held that Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights enshrines the "traditional concept" of marriage as being between a man and a woman and cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples.

Mr Justice O’Hara, sitting in the High Court, stated: "It is not open to me to give an interpretation of the Convention which is quite different from that of the Strasbourg Court ... I must follow clear and constant jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court".

The High Court's judgment shows the limitations that can be placed on domestic courts by the European Court of Human Rights in respect of matters relating to same-sex marriage. 

If the Strasbourg Court evolved its jurisprudence on same-sex marriage - particularly under Article 12 of the Convention - and recognised that the prohibition of same-sex marriage amounts to a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, then this would cascade down to the domestic courts of European states.

At present, however, the European Court of Human Rights is stifling domestic courts and preventing them from addressing and rectifying the issue of marriage inequality based on sexual orientation. 

The importance of "pardons" for gay and bisexual men in the UK

The semi-centennial of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 has produced widespread discussion of the social and legal history of homosexuality in the UK. 

A national conversation about the merits and flaws of the 1967 Act is to be welcomed because, as is well known, this was the first step in a legislative process of decriminalizing "homosexual acts" which concluded, at least in England and Wales, only with the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

An aspect of the current debate that I find perplexing, however, is the tendency of some people to use the anniversary of the 1967 Act to criticize recent steps taken by the UK Parliament to rectify the wrongs done to gay and bisexual men in the past. 

One of the key criticisms relates to the recent pardons issued by the UK Parliament to deceased persons who were convicted of or cautioned for certain repealed sexual offences. These pardons are also available to living people who successfully apply to have a conviction or caution for an offence "disregarded". I outlined the scope (and limitations) of the pardons here.

The argument being made against pardons is that they are an inadequate response because they offer "forgiveness" to those who committed an offence rather than an "apology" to those who were convicted. 

It is somewhat understandable that this criticism of the pardons exists because a pardon does not eliminate a conviction but, in simple terms, relieves a person from suffering any consequences arising from a conviction. Therefore, I'm not against debating the merits of pardons on this and other grounds, and I understand and share some people's ambivalence towards them.

However, what I don't share is the view that the pardons are some kind of "half way house" and that real justice would only be delivered if the government issued a formal apology. That view seems to have gained traction in recent weeks, with numerous people - including Jeremy Corbyn - calling on Prime Minister Theresa May to issue an official government apology. Mr Corbyn is reported as saying that pardons are "insufficient to say the least" and that "an apology to every gay person who was ever persecuted" should be given by the government.

I'm not opposed to the idea of asking the Prime Minister to express apology for the previous treatment of gay people, but I do find the accompanying criticisms of the pardons problematic. 

Pardoning men who were convicted or cautioned for homosexual offences can only be seen as an "empty gesture" if pardons are considered in narrow, legal terms. For instance, it could be said that there is no point to a posthumous pardon because a deceased person is no longer suffering penalties from which they need release. 

However, such an understanding misses a key point about pardons, which is that their effects are not strictly legal but, importantly, also highly symbolic. For example, the pardons granted in 2006 to servicemen executed for disciplinary offences during the Great War were designed to recognize these men as "victims" of that war. Therefore, although in strict legal terms these pardons may appear somewhat "weak", in symbolic terms they are a powerful mechanism whereby social value is attributed to those once considered to be, amongst other things, cowards. 

The posthumous pardons issued to gay and bisexual men, which extend back to 1533, have a similar symbolic effect. They "rehabilitate" - to use a somewhat problematic term - those who were, for centuries, regarded as social outsiders. They give back to those who were executed, imprisoned or otherwise punished, the value that society robbed of them.

Lord Lexden, speaking in the House of Lords during a recent debate on the pardons, said that they "make reparation, to the extent that it is possible and practicable, to those still living and remove a terrible stain from the reputations of those who are no longer alive, for the comfort of their families". I agree. 

The powerful, symbolic effects of pardons stem from the fact that they are, in this case, granted by the UK Parliament through statute law. Enshrining the pardons in legislation means that the supreme authority of our country - Parliament - has recognized, in law, that the treatment of gay and bisexual men in the past was cruel and wrong. The law has therefore come full circle. This is, to my mind, a far more potent way of expressing an "apology" than words spoken by a Prime Minister.

The pardons show how far the UK Parliament has come on the issue of homosexuality. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the word "homosexuality" being spoken for the first time in a Parliamentary debate. Lord Dawson of Penn first used the word in the House of Lords in 1937 in an attempt to make "the practice of homo-sexuality" an explicit ground for divorce. Since then, the Parliamentary approach to legislating on issues relating to homosexuality has completely transformed. Whereas Parliament was once dominated by homophobic ideas, it is now an institution in which respect for equality on the grounds of sexual orientation is the accepted norm. 

There is, of course, work left for the UK Parliament to do - not least in respect of expanding the "disregard scheme" to allow gay and bisexual people living with convictions or cautions to obtain a disregard and a pardon for offences not currently covered by the scheme - but we should not criticize our legislators for the work they have done so far. Rather, we should look to our Parliament and feel absolute pride for what has been done - often by way of imperfect means, like pardons - to right the wrongs of the past. 

We should also remember that enshrining the pardons for gay and bisexual men in statute law has been no easy task and has required tenacious campaigning. A key figure in this campaign has been Lord Sharkey, who twice introduced the Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill in the House of Lords, in 2012 and 2013, as "a symbolic first step" towards addressing the hardship suffered by generations of gay people and, importantly, as a means of persuading the government to act. Alan Turing was eventually pardoned directly by Her Majesty the Queen, but it was Lord Sharkey who moved amendments to the Policing and Crime Bill in 2016 that introduced the pardons for other gay and bisexual men in England and Wales. 

Of course, as Lord Cashman said in a recent debate in the House of Lords on the pardons, "I remind myself that what we achieve now is not achieved by us but was made possible by a thousand generations of LGBT people and our heterosexual allies who stood up and fought for equality, often giving up their livelihoods, their freedom and, in some instances, their lives". That's true. But let's not belittle the work that legislators in both Houses of Parliament, across all political parties, have done to achieve these recent, important reforms. Let's ask them to continue this work and, importantly, to encourage legislators in other countries around the world - including those in Council of Europe states - to adopt the same approach.