The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ordered a household registration office to register a same-sex marriage involving a foreign national from a jurisdiction in which such marriages are illegal.
Taipei’s Zhongzheng District Household Registration Office had refused to register the marriage of Taiwanese Ting Tse-yan (丁則言) and his Macanese partner, Guzifer Leong (梁展輝), when they attempted to do so on Oct. 1, 2019.
The office based its decision on Article 46 of the Act Governing the Choice of Law in Civil Matters Involving Foreign Elements (涉外民事法律適用法), which states that “the formation of a marriage is governed by the national laws of each party.”
It means that same-sex couples involving a partner from a nation or area in which same-sex marriage is illegal — such as Macau — cannot marry in Taiwan or have a marriage conducted in a third nation legally recognized.
In its ruling, the administrative court cited Article 6 of the same act, which states that in specific situations where Taiwanese courts must consider the civil laws of foreign jurisdictions, the foreign law should be applied unless that nation’s laws specifically state that Taiwanese law should be applied.
Under the Macau Civil Code, legal jurisdiction for civil matters is based on a person’s place of “habitual residence,” it said.
Therefore, since Leong is a resident of Taiwan, Taiwanese law allowing same-sex marriage should take precedent, it added.
The court ordered the household registration office to validate the registration that the couple submitted in 2019.
Leong on Thursday thanked the court for its ruling, while noting that many other international same-sex couples in Taiwan have found themselves in the same situation.
Leong, who came to Taiwan in 2017 and runs a small bakery with his partner, said that he has long come to regard Taiwan as his home.
As of press time last night, it was unclear whether the household registration office would appeal the decision.
Chiu Shih-jung (邱士榮), director of the neighboring Daan Household Registration Office, said that the ruling likely “was not final” and that it applied only to the specific couple.
The bigger issue is that laws on how to treat international same-sex marriages lack uniformity, Chiu said.
“Civil servants hope that legal amendments correcting this situation will quickly be passed, so that they have a clear legal process to follow,” he said, referring to the Judicial Yuan in January approving draft legal amendments that would recognize nearly all same-sex marriages.
The amendments, which would revise Article 46 to recognize all same-sex marriages as long as one of the partners is Taiwanese, are awaiting Executive Yuan approval.
They would then need to be passed by the legislature.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but