The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Thursday condemned Ukraine for discrimination and violation of the right to private life due to the lack of recognition and legal protection of same-sex couples, Reuters and Agerpres report.

The ECtHR was referred to the ECtHR in 2014 by a couple of Ukrainian men who tried to marry in Ukraine and were refused by seven civil status authorities on the grounds that the country’s basic law and the Family Code define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The applicants also claim that it was impossible for them to enter into any other type of civil union that would recognize their relationship, although a “family union” is available to unmarried heterosexual couples.

The judges of the Strasbourg Court found that the applicants were treated differently from heterosexual couples simply because of their sexual orientation.

How does the ECtHR justify its decision to condemn Ukraine

According to the ECtHR, Kyiv did not provide any justification for this difference in treatment, and the reason cited by the government to protect the “traditional family” is not a “good reason” to justify denying any legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples steam

Even if the Ukrainian state is “free to limit access to marriage only to heterosexual couples,” the ECtHR adds, this does not justify the exclusion of same-sex couples from “any legal regime.”

The seven judges of the panel unanimously concluded that such a difference in treatment constituted discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, which violated the Convention rights guaranteeing respect for private life (Article 8) and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14).

In a decision made public on Thursday, the ECtHR ordered the Ukrainian state to pay 5,000 euros to each of the plaintiffs as “moral compensation.”

In August of last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that he agreed with the legalization of same-sex partnerships, but explained that while the country is under martial law, it is impossible to change the Constitution of Ukraine.

He did this after a petition on this matter came to his desk, and he also said that the government in Kyiv has prepared several options for legalizing same-sex partnerships in the future.