Marriage equality in Hong Kong: hitting a rainbow ceiling?
Remy Choo
RCLT, Singapore
In a year marked by spots of promising legal advances for LGBTQI+ rights across Asia, the city of Hong Kong (formally known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China) has taken a measured half-step toward recognising overseas same-sex relationships.
On 14 July 2025, the Hong Kong Government introduced the ‘Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill’ (‘the Same-sex Partnership Bill’) in the territory’s lawmaking body, the Legislative Council. However, the adequacy of the rights conferred by the Same-sex Partnership Bill falls far short of full same-sex marriage legalisation, and the question of whether the Same-sex Partnership Bill will be passed into law by legislators remains uncertain.
The introduction of the Same-sex Partnership Bill is a result of a judgment by Hong Kong’s apex court, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA), in the case of Sham Tsz Kit v Secretary for Justice (‘Sham Tsz Kit’).[1]
In Sham Tsz Kit, the appellant was a Hong Kong permanent resident who had entered into a same-sex marriage with his husband in New York in 2013. The appellant brought judicial review proceedings against the Hong Kong government, arguing that the Hong Kong government’s lack of same-sex marriage recognition was a violation of his rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights (HKBOR).
In a three to two majority ruling, the HKCFA held that the absence of an alternative means of legal recognition of same-sex relationships was a violation of the appellant’s rights to privacy under Article 14 of the HKBOR.
Article 14 of the HKBOR, based on Article 17 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), provides as follows:
‘(1) No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.’
The HKCFA held that Article 14 of the HKBOR was engaged because ‘plainly, the lack of means to acquire the legal recognition available to heterosexual couples is potentially demeaning of same-sex couples’.[2]
However, the majority’s ruling declined to hold that there was a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, finding that the constitutional right to marriage was a right reserved to heterosexual marriage.
Based on its determination that the appellant’s Article 14 rights were infringed, the HKCFA ordered the Hong Kong government to ‘establish an alternative framework for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships (such as registered civil partnerships or civil unions) and to provide for appropriate rights and obligations attendant on such recognition with a view to ensuring effective compliance with the aforesaid obligation’[3] within two years of the judgment.
Perhaps partly as a result of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ruling not specifying what an ‘alternative framework for legal recognition of same-sex partnership’ would entail, the Same-sex Partnership Bill falls short of conferring a full complement of legal rights to those in same-sex unions.
Under the proposed framework, eligible couples may register their overseas marriages or civil partnerships in Hong Kong to access a narrow set of rights – specifically, hospital visitation, medical decision-making authority, post-death arrangements and related healthcare matters. Notably absent from the bill are rights involving taxation, public housing, inheritance or immigration.
Further, by conditioning eligibility for relationship recognition on the existence of an overseas-recognised union, the proposed Bill excludes a wide swath of same-sex couples who reside in Hong Kong and have no access to marriage abroad.
The developments in Hong Kong stand in contrast to more expansive developments elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Most notably, Thailand enacted its Marriage Equality Act in August 2024, and the law took effect in January 2025. The Thai Marriage Equality Act amends the Civil and Commercial Code to replace gendered terms with neutral ones, effectively allowing same-sex couples to marry on equal terms with opposite-sex couples. It grants full marital rights, including inheritance, property co-ownership, tax benefits, adoption rights and legal parentage.
Thailand is now the third jurisdiction in Asia – after Taiwan and Nepal – to legalise same-sex marriage, and the first in Southeast Asia.
Elsewhere in Asia, the picture is mixed. In Japan, the national Civil Code and Family Registration Act continues to define marriage as between a man and a woman, though multiple regional courts have ruled that the lack of recognition for same-sex partnerships is unconstitutional.
Ultimately, Hong Kong’s proposed framework may be remembered less for what it offers and more for what it omits.