On 11 July 2002, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (Eur. Ct. H.R.) ruled unanimously in the cases of Goodwin and I v. the United Kingdom that the failure of British law to recognize gender re-assignment and to permit male to female transsexuals to marry persons of their newly opposite sex violated the applicants’ right to privacy (Article 8 ECHR) and to marry (Article 12). These two cases, apart from constituting an explicit deviation from previous constant jurisprudence, gave the Court (sitting as a Grand Chamber) an opportunity to creatively apply its longstanding interpretative principles, including the search for a ‘common European approach’ – now increasingly an ‘international trend’ –, in order to evolve human rights law. The following observations will focus on this aspect, while paying due attention to the other implications of the present cases. Finally, the two cases will be placed in the context of the current jurisprudence of the Court which, unfortunately, does not show a consistent tendency to progressively advance human rights law.
Human Rights in Hong Kong
