On July 16, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) ruled in Hämäläinen v. Finland that it was not a human rights violation to require a transsexual to change her marriage to a registered partnership as a precondition to legally changing her gender from male to female.  According to the press release, the Court held that there was “no violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights; that there was no need to examine the case under Article 12 (right to marry) of the Convention; and, that there had been no violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) taken in conjunction with Articles 8 and 12.”  In its decision, the Court reiterated that the Convention “cannot be interpreted as imposing an obligation on Contracting States to grant same-sex couples access to marriage” and that if the applicant’s claim were accepted, it “would in practice lead to a situation in which two persons of the same sex could be married to each other.”