History
The Life Partnership Act of 2001 was a compromise between proponents of marriage equality for gays and conservatives from the Christian parties, whose interpretation of marriage exclude gays. The act grants a number of rights enjoyed by married, opposite-sex couples. It was drafted by Volker Beck from The Greens and was approved under the Green/Social Democratic coalition government.
On 17 July 2002, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the act. The Court found, unanimously, that the process leading to the law's enactment was constitutional. The 8-member Court further ruled, with three dissenting votes, that the substance of the law conforms to the constitution, and ruled that these partnerships could be granted equal rights to those given to married couples. (The initial law had deliberately withheld certain privileges, such as joint adoption and pension rights for widow(er)s, in an effort to observe the "special protection" which the constitution provided for marriage and the family. The court determined that the "specialness" of the protection was not in the quantity of protection, but in the obligatory nature of this protection, whereas the protection of registered partnerships was at the Bundestag's discretion.)
On 12 October 2004, the Gesetz zur Überarbeitung des Lebenspartnerschaftsrechts (Life Partnership Law (Revision) Act) was passed by the Bundestag, increasing the rights of registered life partners to include, among other things, the possibility of stepchild adoption and simpler alimony and divorce rules, but excluding the same tax benefits as in a marriage. By October 2004, 5,000 couples had registered their partnerships. By 2007, this number had increased to 15,000, two thirds of these being male couples. By 2010, this number had increased to 23,000.
In July 2008, Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that a transsexual person who transitioned to female after having been married to a woman for more than 50 years could remain married to her wife and change her legal gender to female. It gave the legislature one year to effect the necessary change in the relevant law.
On 22 October 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that a man whose employer had given him and his registered partner inferior pension benefits on account of his not being married was entitled to the same benefits he would receive were he and his partner married and of opposite sexes. The court's decision mandated equal rights for same-sex registered couples not just in regard to pension benefits, but in regard to all rights and responsibilities currently applying to married couples.
On 25 October 2009, the Government Programme of the new Christian Democratic-Free Democratic coalition was released. It stipulated that any inequality of rights between (same-sex) life partners and (opposite-sex) married couples would be removed. This would essentially codify into law the Constitutional Court's ruling of 22 October 2009. However, the Government Programme did not mention adoption rights.
On 17 August 2010, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the surviving partners of registered partnerships are entitled to the same inheritance tax rules as the survivors of mixed-sex marriages. Surviving marital partners paid 7—30% inheritance tax while surviving registered partners paid 17—50%.
Read more about this topic: Recognition Of Same-sex Unions In Germany
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