Same-sex marriage is now a reality across Western countries. While this was a positive achievement for the LGBTQ community, some crucial questions remain unanswered. One of these questions concerns the future of nonmarital statuses, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. After the legalization of same-sex marriage, U.S. states are simply phasing them out. I wish to argue against this trend. Based on an original analysis of empirical data and case law, I argue that nonmarital statuses retain value for non-traditional families. In fact, states must introduce nonmarital statuses open to couples regardless of gender, including adult friends and relatives. To support this argument, I present two analyses. First, I survey empirical research showing that (1) opposite-sex couples are signing up for nonmarital statuses at increasingly high rates, where available; (2) interest in such laws is growing even among same-sex couples in countries where same-sex marriage has existed for a long time. Second, I outline the legal and theoretical justifications for extending same-sex nonmarital partnerships to all couples. To this end, I analyze recent strategic litigation in Europe initiated by heterosexual couples who sought access to nonmarital statuses reserved for same-sex couples. The analysis allows me to identify three approaches: a status recognition approach, a utilitarian approach, and a legal-pluralistic approach. Ultimately, I offer guidance to policymakers in crafting a status that would be suitable for modern couples. Families that do not tick the boxes of the traditional marital family model continue to slip under the radar of law. Resurrecting these laws can fix the problem of their legal invisibility.
This article intends to address the limits associated with a rigid grounds-based approach to equality, requiring claimants to categorize their identity as an enumerated ground to “deserve” the protection of the equality guarantee. To this end, I first shed light on the irreconcilability of rigid grounds with post-structuralist accounts of identity, and then lay claim to an approach to equality that extends its reach to fluid, intersectional groups. Thereafter, taking Canada as a case study, I parse out the Canadian equality jurisprudence, and particularly the cases offering an analysis of grounds. I then move to sketch out two proposals to overcome the risks associated with the current equality jurisprudence, by focusing on marital status discrimination. I ultimately offer a cursory overview of the complex interplay between approaches to equality and the organization of interest groups, and illustrate the issues around the organization of “post-identity groups”. Este artículo se propone abordar los límites relacionados con un enfoque de la igualdad rígido y basado en motivos de discriminación (grounds), exigiendo que los demandantes categoricen su identidad como un motivo enumerado para “merecer” la tutela de la garantía de igualdad. En primer lugar, arrojo luz sobre la irreconciliabilidad de los motivos rígidos con concepciones posestructuralistas de la identidad, y después propongo un enfoque de la igualdad extensivo a grupos fluidos e interseccionales. Analizo la jurisprudencia canadiense sobre igualdad, sobre todo los casos que ofrecen un análisis de motivos. En ese punto, esbozo dos propuestas para superar los riesgos asociados a la jurisprudencia actual sobre igualdad, centrándome en la discriminación por estado civil. Por último, ofrezco un somero repaso de la compleja interacción entre los abordajes de la igualdad y la organización de los grupos de interés, e ilustro los problemas que acechan a la organización de “grupos posidentitarios”.
While agencies have an important role in the interplay between central government and states, their functioning impacts both separation of powers and cooperative federalism. Unorthodoxy in rule-making process serves as an example for the ways agencies can further exploit their privileged position in the frame of government. A reaction to an expansion of the weight and centrality of agencies’ decisions consisted in introducing pieces of legislation substantially downsizing agencies’ rulemaking, and in reconsidering judicial deference towards agencies’ determinations. The paper central claim is that all the three branches of government are showing to some extent a willingness to crack down on agencies: the judiciary through employing preliminary injunctions and reshaping the deference doctrine, the President and the Congress through reforms reducing the space of agencies’ actions.
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