Nepal’s Supreme Court orders government to register same-sex marriages

Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to allow same-sex couples to legally register their marriages, paving the way for marriage equality in the South Asian country.

While Nepal’s civil code still defines marriage as between a man and a woman, the order issued by Justice Til Prasad Shrestha on June 30 also calls for amendments to the 2017 code’s provisions related to marriage, The Himalayan reports.

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As Human Rights Watch notes, in 2007 the country’s Supreme Court ordered the government to form a committee to prepare a law legalizing same-sex marriage. That committee recommended that the government “grant legal recognition to same-sex marriage on the basis of the principle of equality” in 2015. But legislation legalizing same-sex marriage has yet to be introduced.

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Earlier this year, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to recognize the German same-sex spouse of a Nepali national. The couple, Adheep Pokhrel and Tobias Volz, were married in Germany, where same-sex marriage is legal, in 2018 but were denied a non-tourist visa for Volz by Nepali authorities. Pokhrel and Volz took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, citing a 2017 decision granting a non-tourist visa to Leslie Luin Melnik, the American wife of a Nepali lesbian, Suman Panta, as well as the court’s 2007 order.

“Given this background, it appears that same-sex marriage should be considered a subject that is envisioned by the constitution and in accordance with the Constitution of Nepal, the decisions made by this Court, the report by the committee formed in accordance with the order by this Court, and the human rights treaties ratified by Nepal,” the justices wrote in Pokhrel and Volz’s case.

Now, Justice Shrestha’s interim order will allow same-sex couples and other LGBTQ+ couples to legally register their marriages immediately, while the government prepares legislation to amend the civil code and formally legalize same-sex marriage.

Justice Shretha’s order also follows a public interest litigation filed in early June by Pinky Gurung, president of Nepali LGBTQ+ rights organization Blue Diamond Society, and eight other members of the LGBTQ+ community seeking legal recognition for same-sex couples.

“We have won our battle, we are very happy with the SC decision,” Gurung said. “We were treated horrendously by our family, society and kin due to lack of law, but now we can easily tackle all the complications on our own with the help of our partner.”

Sunil Pant, Nepal’s first openly gay member of parliament, estimated that 200 LGBTQ+ couples may register their marriages in the coming months. “People are already celebrating,” Pant told Human Rights Watch. “They are rushing back to their villages to collect documents for their marriages.”