A New Agender: Irish Gov drops Foy Appeal

[Shana A]

A New Agender: Irish Gov drops Foy Appeal
Jun 22nd, 2010 | By orange

http://www.gaelick.com/2010/06/a-new-agender-irish-gov-drops-foy-appeal/9752/

Yesterday afternoon, word was excitedly spreading that the Irish Government had withdrawn its appeal against the 2007 High Court decision which held that the Irish State had breached the European Convention of Human Rights by refusing to allow for the applicant–Dr. Lydia Foy, a transgendered person–to obtain a birth certificate reflecting the sex appropriate to her gender.

At the time the Government decided to lodge the appeal, it was regarded as a particularly callous move since the European Court of Human Rights had already found the UK to have breached the European Convention of Human Rights in a challenge on the same grounds in Goodwin v UK [2002]. Since the legal status of transgendered people was no better in Ireland than it was in the UK at that time, Ireland knew that the European Court judgment meant that the Irish State would either have to catch up and remedy the gaps in protection for its transgendered people, or else face a similarly expensive and unnecessary case before the European Court of Human Rights.