The ECHR unanimously confirms the absence of the right to same-sex marriage
On June 9, 2016, the European Court delivered its decision in the case of Chapin and Charpentier v. France (n°40183/07). It questioned the annulment by the French courts of the “Bègles marriage” celebrated in 2004 between two men, in violation of French law. With this decision, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously recalls that the European Convention on Human Rights does not include a right to marriage for homosexual couples, both in terms of the right to respect for private and family life (art. 8) as well as that of marrying and founding a family (art. 12). More precisely, this new decision confirms a series of judgments, recalling in particular that: the question of homosexual marriage is “governed by the national laws of the Contracting States” (§ 36, referring to the Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (n°30141/04); Article 12 enshrined the traditional concept of marriage, namely the union of a man and a woman" and "did not impose on the respondent government the obliga...
