Latvia prepares for big step in LGBTQ+ rights
Latvia prepares for big step in LGBTQ+ rights

Summary/Abstract: No one embodies the individual and collective fight for one’s liberties and freedom in modern-day Latvia as much as Evita Goša. When her fiancée found out she was not entitled to a ten-day paid leave usually granted to fathers of new-borns, she petitioned the Constitutional Court of Latvia which agreed to hear the case. Goša and her lawyers argued that Article 110 of the Latvian Constitution, which declares that the state protects families, should also be applied to families with same-sex parents, and thus her partner’s inability to receive the paid leave as per the national Civil Law should be declared unconstitutional. In mid-November 2020, the constitutional court ruled that Goša’s partner was indeed eligible for the ten-day paid leave after the birth of the couple’s child. But what is more, the court also decided, in a landmark case, that same-sex couples are entitled to the same legal protections as heterosexual couples, thus giving the national legislature, the Saeima, 18 months to establish a legal framework for the protection of same-sex families.

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