Judgment Children can have mom and co-mom

BGH: South African women's marriage binds German registry office

Karlsruhe (jur). The child of a South African woman can also have two mothers in Germany, if the biological mother is married to the other woman under South African law. The German registry offices must recognize this and register the "co-mother" as the second parent, as the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe ruled in a judgment published on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (Ref .: XII ZB 15/15).

In the case decided, a South African woman had a child in 2010 by artificial insemination. She is married to another woman under South African law. The registry office in Berlin-Schöneberg entered the marriage as a same-sex civil partnership. However, she refused to recognize the life partner as the second parent according to German but wife under South African law.

Now, as the BGH decided, it has to do it now. This gives the child as a child of a German automatically also German citizenship.

The rulings of the Karlsruhe judges stated that the origin of the country in which the child is ordinarily resident is also governed by the German laws for the descent of a child born abroad. This is South Africa. And South African law assigns the two spouses as parents to the child.

A legal clause limiting the effect of a civil partnership registered abroad on the German civil partnership does not apply here. Although the same-sex marriage according to South African law is classified here as a civil partnership. However, the "capping limit" for the effect of foreign same-sex partnerships is aimed at their existence and the rules of dissolution. The child's descent, on the other hand, is subject to independent rules and therefore can not be regarded as the "effect of the civil partnership".

There is also no violation of public policy and the interests of the child. "Rather, it can be assumed that the conditions of a legally solidified same-sex partnership can promote the growth of children as well as a marriage. The well-being of the child is therefore not contrary to the recognition, "said the Karlsruhe judges.

The artificial insemination is also allowed in Germany and exclude the sperm donor from the legal paternity. The right of the child to knowledge of his biological origin was "not affected by the legal parent-child assignment," according to the Karlsruhe decision of 20 April 2016. (pm / zwo)