Costa Rica Supreme Court Rules for Marriage Equality, Gives Govt 18 Months to Change the Law

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage, giving the government until 2020 to change the current law.

The AP reports: “Magistrate Fernando Castillo said in a news conference that the laws were inconsistent with an opinion issued in January by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. That court had said countries, such as Costa Rica, that had signed the American Convention on Human Rights had to take immediate action to legalize gay marriage.”

Some advocates were displeased, the Tico Times reports:

“The ruling makes no sense. Basically what it does is prolong [the wait] for the fulfillment of our rights,” lawyer Marco Castillo, who wrote one of the suits against the current prohibition of same-sex marriage that the Supreme Court considered, told journalists.

“It’s a judicial aberration for a state entity to recognize that discrimination exists, and at the same time allow that discrimination to continue for 18 months more,” said LGBTQ activist Margarita Salas.

“It think it’s improbable that in 18 months the assembly with resolve this,” said Enrique Sánchez of the Citizen Action Party, who is Costa Rica’s first openly gay legislator.

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