Principal facts
The applicants are P.B., a Hungarian national, and J.S., an Austrian national. They were born in 1963 and 1959 respectively and live in Vienna in a homosexual relationship. The case concerns their inability under Austrian law to have one partner’s sickness and accident insurance extended to the other partner.
J.S. is a civil servant while P.B. is not gainfully employed and runs the couple’s household. In July 1997, P.B. asked the authority in charge of insurance for civil servants to recognise him as a dependent to whom J.S.’s sickness and accident insurance cover could be extended. The authority eventually dismissed the request in January 1998, referring to the relevant section of the Civil Servants Sickness and Accidents Insurance Act (“the insurance act”), which provided that only a close relative or a cohabitee of the opposite sex qualified as a dependent. The administrative court dismissed P.B.’s complaint against the decision in October 2001, holding that only where a man and a woman lived together in a household run by one of them while not being gainfully employed could it be concluded that they were cohabiting in a partnership. This was not the case if two people of the same sex lived together in a household.
In August 2006 an amendment to the insurance act entered into force, which introduced the possibility for a same-sex partner to qualify as a dependent if he or she was raising children or doing nursing work in the household. This condition was not necessary for a partner of the opposite sex to qualify as a dependent. Another amendment to the act entered into force in July 2007, after which opposite-sex partners were no longer entitled to qualify as a dependent without raising children or doing nursing work in the household. The amended act included a transitory provision for people previously entitled to benefits.
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