The Bulgarian justice went this Wednesday against a ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) by refusing to issue a birth certificate to the stateless daughter of a lesbian couple.
The Supreme Court annulled the decision of the Sofia Administrative Court of May 2022, which obliged the municipal authorities to provide Sara with said document, a pseudonym.
“Bulgaria cannot refuse to recognize that Sara is descended from both parents on the grounds that national law does not provide for the institution of same-sex marriage,” the agency said at the time.
It was based on a ruling by the CJEU, which had found in December 2021 that Bulgaria had violated the fundamental rights of the child.
A decision that will set a precedent, as disparate legislation within EU member states plunges same-sex families into legal conundrums.
A girl without nationality
At the origin of this matter, a lesbian couple, made up of a Bulgarian and a British woman from Gibraltar, whose little daughter born in December 2019 in Spain was without nationality.
Sara could neither claim Spanish nationality, since her two mothers were foreigners, nor British nationality, as she was born in a third country.
Bulgarian law stipulates that any child born to a Bulgarian father is Bulgarian, the couple appealed to the authorities in Sofia, but they refused.
Now three years old, Sara is still stranded in Spain without an identity document.
NGOs regularly accuse Bulgaria of violating the rights of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people. The Court of Cassation ruled out any change in the marital status of transgender people last week.
Source: BFM TV
