Two judges of an Ecuadorian court have ruled against that nation’s ban on same-sex marriage. The pair of judges sit on the Family, Women, Children and Adolescents Court in Cuenca, Ecuador.
The presiding justices were Iliana Vallejo and Ruth Alvarez. In their ruling, they noted that rejected same-sex marriage license applications amounted to a significant violation of human rights.
The immediate spur to the ruling was a pair of cases brought to the court by several same-sex couples whose petition for marriage licenses were denied.
The recent ruling said that the couples must be allowed immediately to proceed with their marriage plans.
In part, the Ecuadorian court took instruction from a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which handed down a ruling in January, to much media attention.
In its judgement, the IACHR said that the twenty countries covered under its legal umbrella must allow and afford the protections of equal marriage to same-sex couples.
However, several nations have declined to follow through with the IACHR ruling.
Ecuador was one of the dissenting nations.
Prior to this ruling, the Ecuadorian government’s Civil Registry had declined to issue licenses to the same-sex petitioners involved in the suit. That was the initial incident that led to court ruling.
The Ecuadorian Civil Registry plans to appeal the decision. The next stop is the Provincial Court, located in Azuay.