Joanne Cassar Taking Trans Marriage Fight To ECHR

Malta's Joanne Cassar recently lost a round in her fight for her marriage rights, but is going to continue that battle by taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

“I’m not inferior to other women… They can invent a million type of partnerships. I want the right to marry... I am a woman and want the rights that come with it.”

The 29 year old Cassar has been fighting this protracted legal battle over her marriage rights since September 2006.   Having exhausted all of her legal options in Malta to resolve the case, Cassar and her attorneys David Camilleri and Jose Herrera will open a case in the European Court of Human Rights.  Malta is a signatory to the treaty that established the ECHR, and whatever decision it makes in this case is binding.

She admitted in a May 25 Times of Malta interview that she was initially disappointed by the adverse ruling. "I was in a bad state at first but then I picked myself up as I realised I had always been willing to take the case to Europe. I always knew it would end there."   

“Like any other woman I feel the best thing in life is getting married and having a family. And don’t bring children into the argument... For me marriage is not only about having children. You marry a man because you love him,” she said adding that hopefully, one day, she would get to wear a white dress."

She is a woman who has human rights that were violated, and hopefully the European Court of Human Rights judges will be far wiser than the ones in her homeland in seeing that.