EU countries which haven’t legalized gay marriages have to respect the residency rights of the same-sex spouses who plan on living together in their own territory, as ruled by the European Court of Justice. This move has been hailed as the victory of human dignity.

According to ECJ, the members have to recognize the rights of every married couple to free movement, irrespective of their sexual orientation and gender. The ruling was in response to the case in which the Romanian authorities had been accused of discriminating against Adrian Coman. He lives with Claibourn Robert, his American husband in his home country. He had been living with him for the last four years in the United States prior to being married in Brussels in the year 2010.

Romanian authorities had denied the right them residency on the ground that he couldn’t be classified as the spouse of EU citizen in Romania. These two men had appealed to the constitutional court of Romania referring to the case of Luxemberg.

Romania doesn’t recognize the same-sex relationship. Nonetheless, ECJ has ruled that EU countries have the freedom of whether or not they want to authorize marriage between two people of same sex. They might not restrict the freedom of residence of EU citizen simply by not agreeing to grant his gay spouse, the nationality of a country which is not an EU member state, a secured right of residence inside the territory.

The term spouse refers to a person who joins another person by marriage. It was the court which said that it is a gender-neutral term and it can cover the same-sex spouse of EU citizen.

After the ruling Coman has said that now they will be able to look in the eyes of the public official in Romania and all around EU with the certainty the relationship is equally relevant and valuable for the purpose of free movement inside EU.