Photo/Illutration Plaintiffs head toward the Sapporo High Court on March 14. (Takayuki Kakuno)

SAPPORO—For the first time, a high court has ruled that Japan’s lack of legal provisions for same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

The Sapporo High Court on March 14 upheld the landmark ruling of the Sapporo District Court in March 2021, which said the absence of same-sex marriage provisions in the Civil Law and Family Register Law violated Article 14 of the Constitution.

Article 14 states that everyone is equal under the law.

However, the high court rejected the claim by the plaintiffs--three same-sex couples--for 1 million yen ($6,800) each in compensation from the central government.

According to the district court ruling, sexual orientation was not something individuals could choose or change at their own will, and that it was on the same level as gender and ethnicity.

Therefore, not providing legal measures to allow same-sex couples to receive some of the legal effects of marriage went beyond the discretionary powers of the Diet and violated Article 14, the ruling said.

But the Sapporo District Court also ruled that Civil Law provisions did not violate the first paragraph of Article 24 of the Constitution, which states that marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes.

The request for compensation was rejected on grounds that public opinion favoring same-sex marriage was a recent development, and the Diet cannot be faulted for having failed to revise laws over an excessively long period of time.

In a separate lawsuit, the Tokyo District Court the same day ruled the Civil Law and other laws were in a state of violating the second paragraph of Article 24, which states that laws on marriage “shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity.”

The court, however, also ruled that it was up to the Diet to decide whether to enact laws allowing same-sex marriage.

It was the sixth district court ruling regarding same-sex marriage.

Two district courts said the lack of same-sex marriage provisions was unconstitutional, while three said the system was in a state of unconstitutionality.

One district court ruled the lack of such provisions was constitutional.

(This article was compiled from reports by Akimitsu Ishigaki and Kazufumi Kaneko.)