A draft for a new legislation on Civil Partnerships is currently being reviewed by the Gibraltar Government and is set to be published soon, as a Command Paper. Following this release, there will be a public consultation period of two weeks, then a further six weeks as the proposal becomes a Bill.

The legislation follows the Government’s Manifesto commitment to legislate for the recognition of civil partnerships between two people, regardless of gender of sexual orientation, reflected by a binding contract through the signing of an official register. The manifesto says that this action would entitle them to benefits related to tax, pension and property rights.

Minister for Equality Samantha Sacramento commented, ‘this is a landmark piece of legislation which will uphold the principle of equal treatment of citizens by the state under the law. There are already cases where the Gibraltar courts have ruled that applicants for housing must have equal treatment regardless of their sexual orientation. The Government is pleased to have progressed this matter through the drafting stage and will soon be ready to move to publication stage’.

Unite the Union has welcomed the initiative. The Union claims that they fully support equality for the LGB community in Gibraltar. A statement released by the Union explains, 'while some may not understand why heterosexual couples would want to opt for civil partnership status rather than marriage, the reasons are manifold. In the first place, it is discriminatory to offer a legal provision to one sector of the community whilst denying it to another. In the second place, there is plenty of evidence to show that where heterosexual civil partnership is available, more and more opposite-sex couples prefer to opt out of Marriage and into civil partnership, and not civil marriage. And in the third place, there are those who, for a range of reasons, prefer to not identify with marriage and prefer a neutral status.

We see little justification for avoiding equality and opting to prohibit anyone from provisions available to others. In compliance with our own Policy, therefore, we would urge that government ensure that civil partnership provisions should also be enacted to cover heterosexual couples. Further to discussions on the matter, we are aware that Equality Rights Group G.G.R. agrees and supports Unite in this position'.