As regards the question whether the refusal to pay the survivor’s pension to the registered life partner constitutes discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, the Court finds in the light of the order for reference that Germany, while reserving marriage solely to persons of different sex, has none the less established the life partnership, the conditions of which have gradually been made equivalent to those applicable to marriage. The provisions of the Versorgungsanstalt Regulations restrict entitlement to survivor's pensions to surviving spouses. That being the case, and since life partners are denied the pension, the latter are thus treated less favourably than surviving spouses.

Consequently, the Court rules that the refusal to grant the survivor's pension to life partners constitutes direct discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, if surviving spouses and surviving life partners are in a comparable situation as regards that pension. It is for the Bayerisches Verwaltungsgericht München to determine whether that condition is satisfied.

Our criminal justice system has been put under pressure by legislation, some of which has reflected the politicization of sentencing. The task of judges and magistrates who have to sentence offenders has been made infinitely more complex by a stream of legislation. The judiciary is willing, if consulted, to advise on the practical implications for the administration of justice of proposed legislation.

China has been cited by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for its abuses of political dissidents in China, and those who have been protesting Chinese rule in Tibet will almost certainly be treated as dissidents. As a party to the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture, Nepal must uphold Article 3, which prohibits the deportation of individuals to countries where they may face torture. Customary international law also prohibits refoulement to such situations.

The government of Nepal should immediately restore the rights of freedom of assembly, expression, and movement, by allowing Tibetans to go about their daily lives and carry out peaceful protests without fear of arrests or threat of deportation. Should the Nepal police continue to engage in conduct that was condemned by all of the current governing parties, Nepali human rights defenders, and the international community, during the People’s Movement of 2005-2006, it will betray its own record of restoring in April 2006 fundamental civil and political rights.