In a decision likely to please equal opportunities campaigners as well as global financial institutions and other employers of overseas talent in Hong Kong, the Court of Appeal has unanimously struck down an immigration policy discriminating against same-sex partners.

In QT v. Director of Immigration (CACV117/2016), decided on 25 September 2017, the Court allowed an appeal against a decision of the Director of Immigration which denied a gay woman a dependent visa enabling her to live in Hong Kong alongside her partner with whom she had entered a civil partnership in England some years previously.

In a sensitively written leading judgment, Mr. Justice Poon JA affirmed the principle that “[d]iscrimination based on sexual orientation, like any other form of discrimination, offends the cardinal principle of equality”.

The visa, which would have allowed the appellant to work in Hong Kong, was refused because she was not her partner’s “spouse”.  The Court determined however that, whilst this was not a form of direct discrimination, because all unmarried couples, whether straight or gay, are excluded from eligibility for a dependent visa, the policy put unmarried gay couples at a serious disadvantage as compared to straight unmarried couples, such that it constituted an unjustified indirect discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.