Hogan Lovells Publications | 15 June 2021

Same-sex marriage equality developments in Japan

On 17 March 2021, a Japanese district court ruled, for the first time in Japan, that the national government’s failure to recognise same-sex marriage is "unconstitutional". As the Japanese legal system is a civil law system, this case does not set a court precedent that must be legally followed by other courts in Japan. Nevertheless, it does represent a positive development in the legal journey toward recognizing same sex marriages.

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