A ruling was handed down in August 2017; Judge John Ailbe O'Hara found towards the couples and determined that there were no grounds beneath case law from the European Court of Human Rights that the couples' rights had been violated by Northern Ireland's refusal to recognise their union as a marriage. Two couples, Grainne Close and Shannon Sickles and Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kanem, introduced the case claiming that Northern Ireland's prohibition on identical-intercourse marriage breached their human rights. In Talbot (otherwise Poyntz) v Talbot in 1967, the prohibition was held to extend the place one partner was a submit-operative transsexual, with Justice Roger Ormrod stating: "Marriage is a relationship which relies on elevator sex, not on gender". Department of Justice and Law Reform. Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (January 2012).
Benvenuto!
