Croatia top court says gay couples can foster children

ZAGREB: Croatia’s top court said Friday that same-sex couples have the right to foster children, an issue that has provoked heated debate in the staunchly Catholic country.

While gay marriage is not legal in Croatia, LGBT couples have been free to register as "life partners" since 2014 and earn the same rights, except when it comes to adoption.

The fostering issue was taken to Croatia´s constitutional court over a 2018 law that did not cite same-sex couples as among those eligible to take in children.

Rights groups slammed the legislation as discriminatory and unconstitutional. On Friday the court published its ruling that the law itself was valid, but that excluding gay couples from its provisions was discriminatory to "same-sex oriented people ...which is constitutionally unacceptable".