Oliari and Others v. Italy
Oliari and Others v. Italy is a case decided in 2015 by the European Court of Human Rights in which the Court established a positive obligation upon member states to provide legal recognition for same-sex couples.
Background
The ECtHR previously held in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria that the Convention does not oblige member states to open marriage to same-sex couples, but if there is a different type of partnership scheme, same-sex couples may not be excluded per Vallianatos and Others v. Greece.Same-sex marriage is not legal in Italy, nor did the country at the time of the case provide any other type of recognition for either opposite-sex or same-sex couples.
The applicants were three same-sex couples who submitted their cases in 2011 after Italian courts rejected their requests to have their marriage recognized.
Judgment
The Court held that Italy, by not legally recognizing same-sex relationships, violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.In the review of relevant law, the Court also referenced Obergefell v. Hodges, a United States Supreme Court ruling legalising same-sex marriage, which was published just a few days before the ECtHR deliberated in Oliari and Others v. Italy.
However, the ECtHR found that, despite the evolution of states in favour of legalising same-sex marriage, there was no violation of Article 12, and thus confirmed its previous ruling in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria.