Case of Schalk and Kopf v. Austria : (Application no. 30141/04) : judgment

The European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgement in the case of Schalk and Kopf v. Austria and ruled that Austria did not breach Article 12 (right to marry) by not allowing a same-sex couple to marry. The applicants, Horst Michael Schalk and Johann Franz Kopf, are Austrian nationals who were born in 1962 and 1960 respectively and live in Vienna. They are a same-sex couple. In September 2002 the applicants asked the competent authorities to allow them to contract marriage. Their request was refused by the Vienna Municipal Office on the grounds that marriage could only be contracted between two persons of opposite sex. On 1 January 2010, the Registered Partnership Act entered into force in Austria, aiming to provide same-sex couples with a formal mechanism for recognising and giving legal effect to their relationships. The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 5 August 2004. On 25 February 2010, a hearing was held in public in the Human Rights Building in Strasbourg.