The family was not allowed to become same-sex – Picture of the Day – Kommersant
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The Central District Court of Tyumen declared the marriage illegal after one of the spouses changed sex. The local prosecutor’s office demanded that the family relations be annulled. The agency referred to the Family Code of the Russian Federation, according to which marriage is “the union of a man and a woman.” Experts call this solution one of the first of its kind in Russia.
The family relations of Tyumen residents A. and Ts. became the subject of investigation by the prosecutor’s office after the city registry office informed the department that a 33-year-old married man had applied for a change of name and sex. On January 17, the supervisory authority applied to the court demanding that the marriage be declared invalid. According to the Family Code of the Russian Federation, the prosecutor explained, “the regulation of family relations is carried out in accordance with the principles of the voluntary union of a man and a woman.” Note that such a concept of marriage after the 2020 referendum was enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
The joint press service of the courts of the Tyumen region told Kommersant that the couple petitioned to consider the claim in a closed format. Because of this, the details of the trial cannot be disclosed either in court or in the prosecutor’s office.
On March 16, the Central District Court granted the prosecutor’s application, declaring the marriage invalid from September 29, 2022.
An expert on the rights of transgender people, lawyer Tatyana Kolotovkina noted that the decision of the Tyumen court is the second such case known to her. A similar decision was made in November 2022 in the Tver region. “In both cases, the prosecutor’s office received information from the authorities directly involved in issuing new documents. In the first case, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which issued a new passport to a person, and in the second case, from the registry office, which made changes to the record of the birth certificate, ”the expert notes. She points out that married Russians have changed the gender marker in documents before, but the authorities did not react to this.
The court had the right to invalidate the marriage only if it did not meet the requirements of the law at the time of the conclusion, believes human rights lawyer Maxim Olenichev (included in the register of foreign agents). “In the case under consideration, according to the documents, initially the marriage was concluded between a man and a woman. The subsequent transgender transition did not change the legal nature of marriage. There are no legally established conditions for its termination at the initiative of the state,” the expert is sure.
Mr. Olenichev believes that the court in Tyumen ignored the decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Fedotova and Others v. Russia, according to which “Russia is obliged to respect various forms of family unions.”
Recall, in March 2022, Russia withdrew from the Council of Europe. After that, the State Duma adopted a law on non-execution of decisions of the ECtHR.
Maria Spiridonova, a member of the Russian Bar Association, on the contrary, calls the decision of the Central District Court of Tyumen in line with Russian law, which recognizes marriage as “the union of a man and a woman.” She added that the ex-spouses have the opportunity to appeal, but “the decision, more than likely, will be left unchanged.” Maria Spiridonova clarified that when changing gender according to the passport, there are no restrictions on future marriages for “different-sex individuals”.
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