Polish liberal activists are celebrating what will now inevitably be the steady flow of gay couples’ foreign marriages being recognised at home, despite Polish law itself forbidding same-sex marriage.
This follows a ruling late last year by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that refusing to register a foreign marriage certificate because it contradicts the nation’s law “is contrary to EU law,” which gives an impression of where the real power lies.
Warsaw last week began transcribing these marriages into its civil registry, prompting one lawyer, Artur Kula, to celebrate that “change has arrived.”
Today there is the first transcription, but more will follow.
Indeed, Wrocław, in western Poland, has already followed suit. Following the recognition this week of a foreign gay marriage there, Alina Szeptycka, the city’s ‘plenipotentiary for equal treatment,’ hailed that “after many years, and recently also months of intense struggle, same-sex marriages concluded abroad are also marriages under Polish law.”
Activist Dagmara Adamiak also said that “history is unfolding before our very eyes.”
But historian Stanisław Żerko suggested in response that the ‘transcription’ certificate being issued to these couples “has no legal effects.”
Trzeba mieć dwucyfrowe IQ, by uznać, że papierek o "transkrypcji" oznacza uznanie przez Polskę "małżeństwa" dwóch homoseksualistów. To zaświadczenie nie ma żadnych skutków prawnych. https://t.co/JustcA3JJ3
The Notes From Poland publication also notes that it “remains unclear what the legal consequences of recognising such marriages conducted abroad will be.”
Following the ECJ’s intervention last year, PiS Deputy Chairman Mateusz Morawiecki insisted that “sovereignty is a condition for the functioning of member states,” and called on the EU to “focus on key issues—competitiveness, problems related to the Green Deal, the migration pact.”
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
