Hong Kong’s high court ruled Wednesday that married same-sex couples should be allowed to apply for public housing, overturning a government ban it said was unconstitutional.

While a step forward for LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong — which have been criticized by campaigners for lagging on equality issues — the housing authority could still appeal the decision.

Hong Kong permanent resident Nick Infinger and his male partner — who married in Canada in 2018 — applied for public housing as an “ordinary family”, but they were rejected by the city’s housing authority.

The body argued that in a husband-and-wife relationship, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a husband refers to “a married man especially in relation to his wife”.

However, Judge Anderson Chow ruled in favour of Infinger in a judicial review, and said the authority was “unable to justify” the difference in treatment between heterosexual and homosexual couples under its spousal policy, according to a court judgement.

The judgement also said a policy which excluded married same-sex couples from the eligibility of applying for public housing was “unlawful and unconstitutional”.

The court granted an order to quash the authority’s decision, and the public housing application has been returned to the authority for “fresh consideration”.

“This judgment highlights yet another example of the discriminatory and unconstitutional government policies that LGBTI people in Hong Kong face every day,” Infinger was quoted as saying on the Facebook page of his lawyer, Michael Vidler.

Hong Kong’s first openly gay lawmaker, Ray Chan, said the ruling is another legal victory for the LGBTQ community.