Europe court of justice rules Poland must recognize same-sex marriages concluded in another EU Member State News
Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Europe court of justice rules Poland must recognize same-sex marriages concluded in another EU Member State

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in a landmark case on Tuesday that Poland has an obligation to recognize the same-sex marriage concluded between two citizens in another EU Member State upon their return.

The CJEU concluded in the Wojewoda Mazowiecki judgement that failing to recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple would hinder the the right of EU citizens to move and reside freely in another Member State under Article 20(2)(a) and 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). Accordingly, refusing to recognize the marriage would create serious inconvenience at the administrative, personal, and professional levels, including obstacles for the couple to regulate their own family life.

The court specifically held that the judgment does not entail an obligation to provide for same-sex marriages under national law as the competence to regulate rules on marriage is exclusive to Member States. However, EU law requires Poland to recognize, according to its preferred procedure, the marriage of same-sex couples concluded in another Member State. This case is particularly relevant as the CJEU included an assessment of the citizens’ right to respect for private and family life guaranteed in Article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation under Article 21. As judge Jan Passer explains, “Where a Member State chooses to provide for a single procedure for recognizing marriages concluded in another Member State, such as the transcription of the marriage certificate in the civil register, it is required to apply that procedure in a non-discriminatory manner”. This permits individuals to move to other EU States where their rights as same-sex couple are recognized and later have these rights enforced also in their home State.

The applicants in the case are two Polish citizens who married in Germany in 2018. Seeking to return to reside in Poland, they requested their German marriage certificate to be transcribed in the Polish civil register. Their request was refused on the grounds that Poland does not recognize same-sex marriages. Furthermore, Article 18 of the Polish Constitution clearly states, “Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman.” The case arrived at the Polish Supreme Administrative Court, which posed a preliminary question to the CJEU under Article 267 TFEU.

The present case references in several instances another landmark case, Coman and Others v. Romania. Here, the CJEU also recognized an obligation to recognize same-sex marriages for the purpose of free movement, as the spouse was a third country national seeking to reside in Romania. What distinguishes the two cases is that in Wojewoda Mazowiecki, the Court reflected more thoroughly on the right to non-discrimination and expanded the obligation to recognize marriages where both spouses are EU citizens. The case of Coman is currently awaiting a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights. This case represents an important step for the protection of LGBT rights in the EU.

THIS DAY @ LAW

WWII National War Labor Board established

On January 12, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt revived the National War Labor Board (NWLB) for World War II. In order to prevent wartime labor stoppages, the NWLB was set up to arbitrate labor disputes that arose during the war. The NWLB also managed wage controls over the airplane, automobile, shipping, mining, telegraph, and railway industries during the war. The original NWLB was created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I for largely the same purposes. Read Cornell University's collection of NWLB files from both World Wars.