Strasbourg (AFP)
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) confirmed Thursday that France could refuse the full transcription of the birth certificate of a child born abroad of surrogacy (GPA), as long as filiation with one's mother "of intention" can be recognized by adoption.
"The Court considers that the refusal of the French authorities is not disproportionate because the domestic law offers a possibility of recognition of the relationship of descent between the child applicants and their mother of intention through the adoption of the child of the spouse, "according to a statement from the ECHR.
The court sitting in Strasbourg has thus declared inadmissible, definitively, the separate applications of two families who had been refused by the French justice the transcription on the registers of the French civil status of all birth certificates children born abroad by surrogacy (GPA) of the father's spermatozoa and oocytes of a third donor.
The ECHR "observes in particular that the average duration of obtaining a decision is only 4.1 months in the case of full adoption and 4.7 months in the case of simple adoption".
In April 2019, the ECHR issued an advisory opinion, valid for the 47 countries of the Council of Europe, recognizing the right to filiation between the "mother of intention", who desired and raised the child but did not did not give birth, and a child born abroad of GPA, because of the "right to respect for the privacy of the child".
Nevertheless, the court left the States a "margin of appreciation" on how to recognize this right to filiation, not necessarily passing by a transcription of the birth certificate legally established abroad.
In the case of the two applications filed, one for a child born to a surrogate mother in the United States, the other for three children also born by surrogate mother in Ghana, the ECHR "sees no reason to doubt the assurances provided" by the French government to offer the possibility of recognition of parentage through adoption. As a result, the refusal to transcribe birth certificates "is not disproportionate to the aims pursued", concluded the court.
© 2019 AFP