【Acrylic Painting by Dennis Tang】
(Paintings and Photos may not be relevant to the incident described,; The Making of @ Youtube: Dennis’ notebook)
In 2018, a lesbian expatriate has won a landmark case against the Hong Kong Immigration Department (HKIMMD)’s refusal to grant her a dependant visa, opened the gate for others who can’t join their same-sex partners as that was not yet officially recognised in Hong Kong.
QT entered into a civil partnership with her same-sex partner. QT’s partner was granted an employment visa to work in Hong Kong but her dependant visa application was however refused by HKIMMD.
HKIMMD’s policy stated that a dependant had to be a husband or wife, and “spouse” as a dependant is based on the concept of a married couple consisting of one male and one female.
QT challenged that the policy was discriminatory against her sexual orientation. HKIMMD argued that the differential treatment required no justification, as there was an obvious difference between a partner to a civil partnership and a married spouse.
The Court of Final Appeal took the view that although civil partnership is not officially a marriage, but is in almost every other respect it indistinguishable from the status of marriage, and held that the differential treatment of the HKIMMD policy was unreasonable and not justified.
