In December, lawyers from the Estonian Human Rights Centre achieved an important victory when the Tallinn Circuit Court declared a provision of the Act on Granting International Protection to Aliens unconstitutional. Under the contested provision, a refugee’s family member does not include a partner with whom the refugee lived in a de facto relationship prior to arriving in Estonia, if marriage or the registration of cohabitation with that partner was legally impossible in the refugee’s country of origin.
Lawyers Uljana Ponomarjova and Nora Kurik from the Estonian Human Rights Centre (EHRC) represented before the court a person who had been granted international protection in Estonia, whose application to bring to Estonia their partner— with whom they had lived together for over ten years—had been refused by the Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB).
The PBGB rejected the family reunification application, arguing, among other things, that despite the proven long-term relationship, the applicant’s partner could not be considered a family member because the couple had neither married nor registered their cohabitation in their country of origin.
The lawyers from EHRC pointed out that the partners were neither married nor in a registered partnership because this was simply not possible—the legislation of their country of origin represses LGBT+ people.
“If LGBT families were always required to meet the marriage or registered partnership criteria set out in the Act on Granting International Protection to Aliens, such families would never be able to exercise the right to family reunification. A situation that renders people in LGBT relationships significantly more vulnerable than those in heterosexual relationships is discriminatory and infringes rights protected by the Estonian Constitution,” explains Ponomarjova.
Consequently, the lawyers requested that, if the court did not see a possibility to interpret the relevant provision of the law more broadly, it should declare the provision unconstitutional and leave the requirement of marriage or registered cohabitation unapplied.
The Tallinn Circuit Court agreed with the arguments of EHRC’s lawyers, noting that the Estonian Constitution—which also protects the right of same-sex couples to family life in Estonia—extends to foreign nationals residing in Estonia and their family members. As a precondition for upholding the appeal, the Circuit Court declared unconstitutional and left unapplied the provision of the Act on Granting International Protection to Aliens that does not recognise as a refugee’s family member a partner with whom the refugee lived together prior to arriving in Estonia, where marriage or the registration of cohabitation was legally impossible in their country of origin for reasons beyond the partners’ control.
The Tallinn Circuit Court referred the case to the Supreme Court for constitutional review proceedings. The deadline for reviewing the constitutionality of the restriction is 17 April 2026; case number 5-25-79.
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