The Taipei High Administrative Court on Wednesday began reviewing the case of lesbian couple Lu Hsin-chieh (呂欣潔) and Chen Ling (陳凌), whose application to marry was denied by Taipei’s Zhongzheng District Household Registration Office in 2014.
The Council of Grand Justices in May ruled that the Civil Code violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of marriage and equality, saying the legislature should amend relevant laws within two years to protect the interests of same-sex couples.
Lu and Chen’s lawyer requested that the office allow the two to register their marriage.
Judge Bi Nai-chun (畢乃俊) asked office staff whether the computer system for registering marriages has been reprogrammed to allow same-sex marriages and how they will register same-sex marriage if legislation is not completed within two years.
The staff said the system has not been reprogrammed and that they have to conform to the Ministry of the Interior’s instructions, but added that the ministry only informed them to make a non-legally binding mark on household registration documents.
A formal discussion is to be held in the next session.
Lu, Chen, their lawyers and Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights members held a news conference outside the court after the session.
The couple are not asking for privileges, but only want to have the same right as heterosexual couples to register their marriage, Lu told reporters.
Several protesters against same-sex marriage also gathered outside the court, holding signs that read “Collusion to destroy Taiwan” and shouting that the constitutional interpretation was illegal as they tried to interrupt the news conference.
The two sides quarreled for a while as court police tried to separate them.
“Taiwan is a free and democratic nation, and people have freedom of speech,” Lu said, asking the protesters to respect her freedom to express her opinions and appeal for other people’s rights.
Her relationship with Chen is not recognized by law, she said.
Lu said she hopes the court will allow them register their marriage and that the Executive Yuan and legislature will start reviewing the bills to protect the rights of same-sex couples.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching