The draft report of the CGPJ on the new Family Law warns that the 20 types of family that it contemplates do not fit into the Constitution and can generate "confusion, legal insecurity and inequality". This is stated in the report that will be submitted to the vote of the Plenary this Thursday and that arrives late, because the Council of Ministers plans to send it today to the Congress of Deputies.

"Although the Constitutional Court starts from a broad concept of family, the atomization that the law carries out [...] goes beyond the constitutional framework and creates confusion, legal uncertainty and inequality among the recipients of the protection measures included in the Preliminary Draft," the report states. The text indicates that there may be "cases of overlap of two or more categories" of family, to which is added the equalization of single persons, "without explaining the reasons."

The legal text promoted by the Ministry of Social Rights headed by the leader of Podemos Ione Belarra contemplates a score of family types, according to the count made by the General Council of the Judiciary. Namely:

1.- Biparental family

2.- Monomarental or single-parent family

3.- Young family (a person under 29 years of age and their children)

4.- LGTBI homomarental and homoparental family

5.- Family with greater needs for parenting support (current large families)

6.- Family in which there is only one parent

7.- Family in which there are people with disabilities and / or in a situation of dependency

8.- Multiple family (in which there are multiple births, adoptions or fostering)

9.- Family in which adoptions or fosterings occur

10.- Reconstituted family (with children from previous relationships)

11.- Family living in rural areas

12.- Immigrant family

13.- Transnational family

14.- Intercultural Family

15.- Family abroad

16.- Returned family

17.- Family in a situation of vulnerability

18.- Single people

19.- People united in marriage

20.- Domestic partner

The report written by the members Juan Martínez Moya and Pilar Sepúlveda considers that the draft contains a regulation "at least confusing in terms of the concepts of family unit and family", at least in terms of the effects of applying the protection measures contemplated.


Despite the criticism of the proliferation of families, the text that must now be ratified or modified by the Plenary of the Council offers a "positive" assessment of most of the norm. Of course, it highlights that although in many cases it is limited to declarations of intent that need a subsequent regulatory development to be effective.

"The Preliminary Draft contains a large part of its articles provisions of a programmatic nature, some of which are reduced to merely descriptive normative statements, without legal content as such [...]. And in other cases, the normative statement lacks true virtuality and substantiveness, limiting itself to reproducing in its propositions faculties or rights that are already recognized in other norms, "says the text. In the opinion of the rapporteur, there is no "true global framework for the protection of the family with effective legal content".

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  • Council of Ministers
  • Congress of Deputies
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