Barry Streek Same-sex partners of members of the South African National Defence Force will in future have the same benefits as the spouses of the country’s soldiers, sailors and air force members. Regulations amending the definition of “marital status” and “spouse” to include partners in permanent life partnerships have been published in the Government Gazette. The amendments bring the defence regulations in line with the Constitution, which outlaws unfair discri-mination on the basis of sexual orientation. It follows a ruling by Judge Frans Kgomo in the Pretoria High Court last year that the partner of Judge Kathy Satchwell was entitled to the same benefits as those afforded to married judges’ spouses. After Satchwell launched her action, the government introduced legislation, the Judicial Officers Amendment Bill, to provide for the same-sex partners of judges to receive benefits identical to those available to the spouses of judges, if the relationship exists at the time of the judge’s death. The new regulations on marital status in the defence force bring it into line with this approach. The regulations state that “marital status” now includes “the status or condition of being single, divorced, widowed or in a relationship, whether with a person of the same or the opposite sex, involving a reciprocal support in a relationship”. In terms of the regulations, “spouse” means being married to a member of the defence force or being a beneficiary in a marriage that is recognised as valid in terms of the 1998 Recognition of Customary Marriages Act or the 1961 Marriage Act. “Spouse” now also means “a partner (the partnership being either heterosexual or homosexual) in a permanent life partnership, if such partnership was attested before a Notary Public”. In the Pretoria High Court case, Judge Kgomo rejected claims by counsel acting for the Minister of Justice, Penuell Maduna, that the discrimination against Judge Satchwell was not unfair and was based on marital status and not sexual orientation. “I have great difficulty in upholding the respondent’s [minister’s] argument that the discrimination against Satchwell and other same-sex partners serves a legitimate government purpose. “That purpose, in terms of the submission, is the provision of a financial inducement to top counsel to abandon their lucrative private legal practices in favour of financial sacrifices that judicial appointment entails. “The fallacy of this argument lies therein that by implication there are no top gay men or lesbian counsel but if there are, because of their marital status and sexual orientation, they are not worthy of being accorded the benefits provided by the Judges’ Remuneration Act and the attendant regulations to married couples. “This discrimination is unwarranted, dehumanising, stereotypical, unjustified and consequently unfair,” Kgomo said then. In the same case, he ruled that the sections of the Child Care Act and the Guardianship Act that prevented Judge Anna-Marie de Vos and her partner, Suzanne du Toit, from adopting their two children were invalid and unconstitutional.