28 July 2025
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas (AIHKO) is submitting this briefing in response to the Legislative Council’s invitation for submission on the Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill gazetted on 11 July 2025.
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas Section calls on the HKSAR government to:
- Conduct an open and transparent public consultation, actively listen to the voices of LGBTI people and the general public, and take their views into serious consideration.
- Review, overhaul, or abolish all laws, policies, and practices that discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status to fulfill its obligation under international laws and the Court of Final Appeal’s ruling.
- Amend the Bill to fully implement the Court of Final Appeal’s ruling by providing a legal framework that ensures same-sex couples can enter into a civil partnership locally, and not just recognize those registered overseas.
- Provide statutory protections in the Bill for equal rights that have already been established by past judicial rulings, including eligibility for public housing, access to spousal benefits for civil servants and taxation, and the right to inherit the estate of a same-sex partner as a spouse/civil partner —thereby improving legal clarity, transparency, and the effectiveness of enforcement.
- Thoroughly review all rights currently being denied for same-sex couples, and eliminate all differential treatment unless it’s justified with objective and particularly serious reasons rationally connected to and necessary for a legitimate aim6.
- Publicly disclose a contingency plan in the event that the Bill is not passed before the deadline set by the Court of Final Appeal, as such a failure would deny even the minimum protection to same-sex couples and severely undermine the rule of law in Hong Kong.