The administrative court in Sofia ruled on Monday (May 16th) that municipal authorities in the Bulgarian capital must issue a birth certificate to the stateless baby of a married lesbian couple from Bulgaria and Gibraltar, lawyers for the two mothers said.
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“
The Municipality of Sofia (…) must issue a Bulgarian birth certificate indicating the name of the holder, the date and place of birth, the sex and the origin of both parents of Sara
”, announced the organization of advocacy for LGBTQ minority rights Deychtvie in a statement, citing the court ruling.
“
Bulgaria cannot refuse to recognize that Sara is descended from both parents on the grounds that national legislation does not provide for the institution of same-sex marriage
,” the court added.
The Court of Justice of the EU questioned
When she was born in 2019 in Spain, the girl could not obtain the nationality of this country because neither of her parents was Spanish.
She had also been unable to become British because her mother from Gibraltar had not been born in that British enclave or in the United Kingdom.
The law in Bulgaria stating that any child born of a Bulgarian parent has Bulgarian citizenship, the couple then turned to the authorities in Sofia.
But the municipality, without denying that the girl was born Bulgarian, had refused to issue her papers with the names of her two mothers, on the grounds that this Balkan country does not recognize same-sex couples.
The complainants, stuck in Spain and who wanted to be able to travel independently of each other with the child, had then seized the administrative court of the Bulgarian capital.
This court had in the process itself questioned the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), which had concluded that Bulgaria had violated the fundamental rights of the girl.
"
Member States must recognize the bond of parentage
" uniting a newborn to its two mothers and "
respect (...) the freedom of movement and residence of citizens of the European Union
", had decided last December this European institution.
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A decision set to set precedent, with the disparate legislation within EU Member States confronting homoparental families with legal headaches.
The judges of the CJEU had added that “
the evocation of the prohibition of marriage between two persons of the same sex
” by Bulgaria to justify its refusal was “
not in conformity with the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter
”.