A Japanese court ruled on Tuesday that the government's failure to recognise same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, the second such verdict among five similar lawsuits brought to district courts in the country.
But the Nagoya District Court, ruling on a lawsuit filed by a male couple in their 30s who reside in Aichi Prefecture, rejected their demand that the state pay each man ¥1 million (US$7,100) in compensation for the current legal system not allowing them to marry.
The latest ruling, the fourth among the five similar lawsuits, follows the Sapporo District Court's landmark verdict in March 2021 that said the country's Civil Code and family registration law, which do not acknowledge same-sex marriage, violate the Constitution's guarantee of equality before the law.
The Osaka and Tokyo district courts ruled in June and November last year, respectively, that the current legal system banning same-sex marriage as constitutional. But the Tokyo District Court said at the same time that the inexistence of legal system recognising same-sex marriage is in a "state of unconstitutionality."
Plaintiffs in the Sapporo, Osaka and Tokyo courts have all appealed the rulings after seeing their damages claims dismissed.
In Tuesday's ruling, the male couple, who filed the lawsuit in February 2019 after their registration of marriage was not accepted, argued that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage constitutes a discrimination that is banned under Article 14 of the Constitution.
They also claimed that the Civil Code and family registration law, which do not recognise their marriage, violate the Constitution, as the charter's Article 24 regulating marriage, does not explicitly ban same-sex marriage.
The government has said that Article 24 does not presuppose marriage between the same sex as it says, "Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes." Not legislating recognition of same-sex marriage is not unconstitutional, the government has said.
