Forum Home → Discussion → Other areas of social welfare law → Thread
Living together
Just pondering on a drafting lacuna that I’ve stumble across. What would be the difference between ‘two people who are living together as if they are a married couple or civil partners’ and ‘two people who are living together as if they are a married couple’?
Was the first drafted when civil partnership was the only option for gay couples? And the second either before civil partnership came in or after gay marriage did?
Was the first drafted when civil partnership was the only option for gay couples? And the second either before civil partnership came in or after gay marriage did?
I thought much the same. Civil partnerships for opposite sex couples only came in in 2019.
Was the first drafted when civil partnership was the only option for gay couples? And the second either before civil partnership came in or after gay marriage did?
I assume that was the origin of the difference, but these are in the same more recent regs.
Interesting legal question as to whether a civil partnership (same sex or otherwise) is caught by ‘two people who are living together as if they are a married couple’.
The couple (I use that word in the every day sense rather than as a defined legal term) who established the right of opposite sex couples to have a civil partnership would argue it does not, because there is something qualitatively different about a civil partnership compared with a marriage. But if that is correct, a cohabiting couple (again in the everyday sense) who are neither married nor civil partners could argue that they are not living together as if married, they are just living together as if they were civil partners which is not the same thing!