European Court of Justice
Decision made: Yes, a child can have two mothers
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Can a child have two mothers? Yes, says the European Court of Justice now. In this specific case, two women were able to celebrate a huge success – their daughter is finally getting a passport.
With this ruling, the European Court of Justice has strengthened the rights of families with same-sex parents. Specifically, the proceedings concerned a case of two women who were married to each other. Both are entered as mothers on the daughter’s birth certificate.
Bulgaria refused to issue documents to the daughter of a lesbian couple
One of the two mothers has a Bulgarian and the other a British passport – they live in Spain with their daughter. The little one was born in 2019 and both women were entered as mothers on her birth certificate.
In order to receive travel documents for the daughter, the birth certificate was always necessary in Bulgaria, according to the “Tagesschau”. However, the city of Sofia refused to issue the documents. In Bulgaria public order would only allow a birth certificate if mother and father were on it. In addition, it is not clear whether the Bulgarian mother is also the birth mother and thus the child is of Bulgarian descent.
If one EU state recognizes parenthood, so must all other EU states
The judge of the European Court of Justice has now ruled that a relationship between child and parents recognized by one EU country must also be recognized by all other EU countries. Legal parenting is sufficient for this. It does not matter whether it is also a biological parent.
In this specific case, this means that Bulgaria must accept the birth certificate with both mothers and issue the required documents, since Spain confirms legal parenting by registering both mothers. This automatically gives the little girl Bulgarian citizenship. So far the daughter is stateless.
In Germany, according to the BGB, there is only motherhood and paternity
In Germany the situation is similar to that in Bulgaria. The civil code expressly speaks of motherhood and fatherhood. There is currently a procedure in Germany in which a lesbian couple wants to be registered as “co-mothers”. The procedure is currently suspended, but will be examined further.
According to the first findings of the Higher Regional Court in Celle, the terms motherhood and fatherhood could be too narrow and violate the constitution. The case is now before the Federal Constitutional Court within the framework of a regulatory review. The judgment of the European Court of Justice could represent an important orientation, even if the case cannot be transferred one-to-one, since both women have the same citizenship.
Sources used: tagesschau.de, sueddeutsche.de
This article originally appeared on ELTERN.de