After obtaining permission by European Court of the Human Rights (ECtHR)  to indirectly participate in the supranational judicial proceedings, National LGBT rights organization LGL submitted the Amicus Curiae brief in the ECtHR case Buhuceanu and Ciobotaru v. Romania, brought by 26 Romanian applicants regarding human rights violations resulting from insufficient same-sex family rights recognition.

Third Party court intervention brief, submitted together with the LGBT and their Friends Association Mozaika (Latvia); Love Does Not Exclude Association MNW (Poland), Iniciatíva Inakost (Slovakia), LGBTI Organization BILITIS (Bulgaria) and in cooperation with White & Case LLP (Brussels) , explores the similarities between legal and social environments and its practical impact on LGBT families in the remaining EU Member States with very limited to no LGBT family rights recognition.

The document argued that a prominent lack of legal protection results in flagrant discrimination against a significant part of the population and breaches their fundamental rights protected under the European Convention of Human Rights.

Amicus also made a reference to Vallianatos and Others v. Greece, in which ECtHR found violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights an Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). In this case the Court stated that the ECHR is a living instrument to be interpreted in present-day conditions while noting that  Lithuania and Greece remain the only countries under ECHR mechanism  to reserve the existing partnership institute exclusively to different-sex couples.

In case further permission will be granted by the ECtHR, LGL will proceed with submitting results of the extensive research on practical legal and social daily life challenges faced by same-sex couples in the last EU Member States with virtually no regulations concerning the status same-sex relationships.

This Court intervention brief was prepared strictly on pro bono basis in cooperation of CSO experts and legal professionals. No European Union funding was used for its preparation and/or dissemination purposes taking into account that no European Union funding should go to advocacy directly aiming to change the national legislation on a person’s status, including the definition of marriage, or to litigation targeting that legislation.