According to German law, a woman can not be registered as a mother of her child at the registry office, which was held by a Ukrainian surrogate mother. Only one adoption is possible, as emerges from a published decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe.
The child, born of sperm and egg cell of the German couple, was born in the Ukrainian capital Kiev at the end of 2015. The local registry office registered the two Germans as parents. In North Rhine-Westphalia, on the other hand, the Ukrainian surrogate mother was later entered in the birth register as the mother of the child.
Surrogacy is prohibited in Germany. In individual cases, the BGH had nevertheless already recognized similar constellations, because a court abroad had ascertained the parenting.
At a foreign registry office registration see the supreme family judge not bound. They applied German law because the child was brought to Germany after the birth. In this country, the mother is always the woman who gave birth to the child.