Registered partnership (Austria)

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Basic data
Title: Registered Partnership Act
Long title: 135. Federal law, which enacted a federal law on registered partnerships [and 77 laws amended] be
Abbreviation: EPG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Republic of Austria
Legal matter: Civil law (primary) as well as numerous adjustments in other legal areas
Reference: BGBl. I No. 135/2009
Date of law: December 30, 2009
Effective date: January 1 , 2010
Please note the note on the applicable legal version !

The registered partnership ( EP ) is regulated in the Federal Law of the Republic of Austria Registered Partnership Act ( EPG ). This regulates the rights and obligations of couples who enter into a civil partnership in Austria , as well as the registration of this partnership and any dissolution. The Austrian EP is open to couples of any gender.

Although the content of the law is closely based on Austrian marriage law , it also contains numerous politically motivated differences to traditional marriage . It was decided by the coalition government made up of the SPÖ and ÖVP ( Faymann I cabinet ) in parliament at the end of 2009 and came into force in 2010. The Constitutional Court lifted the different rules for same-sex and different-sex couples with the decision on December 4, 2017 due to the ban on discrimination; the change came into force on January 1, 2019.

The share of registered partnerships in Austria has remained relatively constant at around 400 to 500 EPs per year at around 1% of marriages in recent years.

Historical development of the registered partnership

In June 2004 the civil pact  (Zip) was presented to the public as a civil partnership model of the Greens for the equality of lesbian and gay partnerships with marriage in the sense of the lifestyle policy . At the same time, the Greens also introduced a motion for a resolution in Parliament.

In particular, the draft law submitted by the SPÖ is referred to as a registered partnership ; the SPÖ draft also differed only slightly from the green draft. In the political discussion in Austria, a draft law for a civil partnership law of the Ministry of Justice under Federal Minister Maria Berger  (SPÖ) was discussed. The government coalition between SPÖ and ÖVP set up a working group to which representatives of the ministries and all Austrian homosexual organizations (including HOSI  Vienna, HOSI Linz ) were invited. On April 24, 2008, the Ministry of Justice submitted a draft law for assessment that only covers the area of ​​civil law that is part of the Ministry of Justice. All other areas such as aliens law, tax law, inheritance law, social security law etc. were not included. The movement organizations therefore largely rejected the draft law in this form. Due to the dissolution of parliament in the course of the new elections on July 10, 2008, the draft law has become obsolete.

After a conversation between Interior Minister Maria Fekter and a four-person delegation from the LAMBDA Legal Committee on February 17, 2009, the Interior Minister announced that the partnership law would be passed next autumn. In November 2009, the governing coalition agreed in the Council of Ministers to allow registered partnerships from 2010; However, lesbian and gay couples are still not allowed to be married at the registry office . In tax law, pension and pension entitlements, they were put on an equal footing with heterosexual couples, and the possibility of having a common name was also created. However, the common name is different from the common name in marriage. The common name should no longer be used as a "family name", but as a "surname". Double names should, in contrast to naming rights in marriage, be written without a hyphen, unless the spelling with "-" is specifically sought when submitting the documents.

The Registered Partnership Act  (EPG) was passed by the National Council in Vienna on December 10, 2009 with the votes of the governing parties SPÖ and ÖVP as well as individual members of the Greens and BZÖ and confirmed by the Federal Council - the Austrian Chamber of States - on December 18, 2009. The EPG also passed the Federal Council on December 18, 2009 and, following its publication in the Federal Law Gazette (Federal Law Gazette I 135/2009 of December 30, 2009), it entered into force on January 1, 2010 as planned.

The first EP registrations in Austria therefore took place on the first possible working day: on Monday 4th January 2010 four pairs were registered in Vienna. The first media entries followed on January 7, 2010 in Graz (Styria) and Villach (Carinthia).

Covered legal areas of the EPG

Legal Areas

To a large extent, the EPG is based on Austrian marriage law, especially in the material part, which regulates rights and obligations, so that changes in around 77 individual laws were resolved at the same time. The EPG therefore largely comprises the following areas of law analogous to marriage law:

  • The mutual obligations and rights of the couple to each other including maintenance obligations
  • Divorce law (except the six-year divorce period in hardship cases)
  • Inheritance law
  • Housing and tenancy law
  • Tax and duty law
  • Rights of workers and employees as well as public employees
  • Trade law
  • Social security law including pension law
  • Alien and residence law (Settlement and Residence Act - NAG, Asylum Act - AsylG and Citizenship Act - StbG)
  • Numerous other areas in detail, such as the regulations for military servants, civil servants, development workers, doctors, notaries, lawyers, public accountants or civil engineers

Legal engineering

The applied legal technique is not a "general clause" (with a general reference to marriage law including specific exceptions), but works with a complicated mixture of the following legal techniques:

  • Dynamic individual references to individual provisions of civil law or other legal matters;
  • Partly verbatim replicas of already existing marriage law provisions for registered partners, in some places with serious differences in detail;
  • As well as numerous additions to existing legal provisions for spouses by adding the words "registered partnership" or "registered partner" "after the existing words" marriage "or" spouse ", also in some places with serious restrictions in detail.

It is therefore advisable in any case to seek expert advice from an advisory institution or a lawyer for detailed questions about the specific legal effects of an EP for the respective partnership (especially regarding "marriage contract" as well as in special cases such as rainbow families or foreign references).

Associated amendments to laws, ordinances, etc.

An amendment to the Civil Technology Chamber Act ( BGBl. I No. 136/2009 ), which was obviously forgotten in the original government bill of November 17, 2009 , was also decided jointly with the EPG .

To enable first entries from January 4th, 2010, the responsible Ministry of the Interior quickly issued three ordinances on the first possible day, January 1st, 2010: The amendment of the Personal Status Ordinance ( Federal Law Gazette II No. 1/2010 ) which regulates the process of entry and regulates the associated forms as well as an amendment to the Name Change Ordinance ( BGBl. II No. 2/2010 ) and the Citizenship Ordinance ( BGBl. II No. 3/2010 ).

Further adjustments to regulations are likely to follow, such as the pending adjustment of the Federal Administrative Tax Ordinance with regard to some registration fees.

Differences to marriage law (legal situation until January 2013)

For political reasons (conditions of the smaller ruling party ÖVP for its approval of the UPG), the law deliberately deviates from matrimonial law in important points, in particular:

  • Entry : Closing not at the registry office , but in front of the district administrative authorities ( district authority or magistrate ), only in the official rooms of the authority without the witnesses provided for marriage ceremonies;
  • Naming rights : The EP gives lesbians and gays a surname instead of their previous surname . For this purpose, a joint “after” name can be requested with the entry (in contrast to marriage not retrospectively, but a legal review procedure by the Constitutional Court is ongoing), the other partner (who loses his surname as a result) can then use his previous name for this joint name Put in front or after, since November 11, 2011 as usual with a hyphen in between.
  • Rainbow families : There is a lot of discrimination against lesbian and gay couples with children. In addition to the prohibition of artificial insemination and the adoption of foreign children, this primarily concerns the rights and obligations towards the stepchildren (i.e. the partner's children), in particular in questions of care leave, family hospice / death leave, the right of representation in custody matters and the absolute prohibition of stepchild adoption.

As of December 2011, sixty topics are known in all of Austrian federal law - without claim to completeness - which differ from marriage. Five of these points are a deterioration or a step backwards compared to the regulations for unmarried partners, which are fully equated. (Explicit prohibition of stepchild adoption and medically assisted procreation as well as three subject areas with difficult work reduction or exemption for the care of stepchildren). The travel fee ordinance for public employees was amended by the legislator with effect from January 1, 2011. The interpretation that a double name must be formed without a hyphen (since it is not specifically mentioned in § 2 Paragraph 1 Z.7a NÄG, in contrast to § 93 ABGB, which applies to marriage ) was recognized by the Constitutional Court as discriminatory and has been since November 11, 2011, a hyphen is to be used as usual.

In January 2013 the Constitutional Court in Vienna ruled that various differences to marriage in the existing law are unconstitutional. In the future, for example, witnesses will be allowed in Austria .

Regional implementation of the registration

The differences in the registration can at least in the 15 Austrian Statutarstädten (statutory towns like Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, etc.), if there is political will of the municipal government, be partially circumvented, because in such cities with a municipal registry office and the District administrative authority coincide de facto. Some Austrian statutory cities deliberately take a liberal approach in their regional implementation:

  • For the municipality of Vienna , the responsible city councilor Sandra Frauenberger officially presented the “Viennese partnering package” on December 21, 2009, within the framework of which at the state level the responsible municipal department (MA35) exhausted all possibilities of the EP law in order to achieve a marriage-like entry in the wedding rooms of all Viennese registry offices (or in the Vienna City Hall) and to enable a corresponding ceremony.
  • Salzburg had tentatively announced steps similar to Vienna. Linz , Wels and St. Pölten also allow entries with ceremony.

In contrast, other cities and district authorities have already announced a particularly conservative implementation of the registration of an EP (without a ceremony and deliberately not in those places that are used for weddings), above all Graz under Mayor Siegfried Nagl and the Vorarlberg district authorities under Governor Herbert Sausgruber .

The first EP registrations in Austria took place on Monday 4th January 2010 (the earliest possible working day) in Vienna at the municipal district office for the fifth district (MBA5), where four registered partnerships were concluded on that day. In Styria, the first registered partnership was concluded on January 7, 2010 in Graz, and it was also the first media-public establishment of an EP in Austria. In the afternoon of the same day, the first EP entry in Carinthia followed in Villach, and this was also open to the media. The first EP registration in Salzburg took place far away from the public on January 8, 2010. In Upper Austria, the first entry (but without a ceremony) took place on January 20, 2010 in Wels and the first entry with a ceremony at the registry office of the Linz town hall on January 23, 2010.

See also

literature

Katharina Gröger, Hartmut Haller: Registered partnership law: EPG; Text edition with explanations and comments , Manz, 2010, ISBN 978-3-214-08461-5

Web links

Countries:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The distinction between marriage and registered partnership violates the prohibition of discrimination
  2. ^ Republic of Austria: General information on the registered partnership. Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  3. ↑ More weddings and mostly babies in Vienna. February 25, 2019, accessed February 28, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b cf. J. Cornides: Everything the same? Legislative initiatives to create a "civil pact" and a "registered partnership" . In: Juristische Blätter 130.5 (2008), pp. 285-294 (online at works.bepress.com).
  5. ^ Austria: gay marriage in the registry office. queer.de.
  6. ^ Opinion on life partner law.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hosilinz.at   Hosi Linz (PDF file; 45 kB).
  7. ↑ http://www.gaynet.at/news/artikel/5199_Lambda GAYNET.AT
  8. ↑ Der Standard : But agreement on gay marriage , November 17, 2009. Retrieved December 10, 2009.
  9. ↑ Registered Partnership Act - EPG , 485 of the Supplements, XXIV. Legislative Period, Parliament website : Parliamentary materials (accessed December 10, 2009).
  10. ^ National Council fixes entry of gay partnerships. In: Der Standard , December 10, 2009. Retrieved December 10, 2009.
  11. ↑ a b Partnership Act.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.rklambda.at   Press release, Lambda Legal Committee, December 18, 2009 (PDF; 97 kB).
  12. ↑ Press release: Registered partnerships: double names only with hyphen , Constitutional Court Austria, 11 November 2011
  13. ↑ Unequal treatment in relation to marriage (as of December 2011), Lambda Legal Committee, December 23, 2011
  14. ↑ Sections 22, 32 Travel Fee Regulation: Budget Accompanying Act 2011 (BGBl. I 111/2010)
  15. ↑ Constitutional Court B 518/11 of September 22, 2011 ( Memento of the original of December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , published November 11, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rklambda.at
  16. ↑ Homosexuals fight for a hyphen. In: Die Pesse online, November 11, 2011.
  17. ↑ Austria: Homosexual couples must be able to say “Yes”. queer.de.
  18. ↑ Frauenberger presents the "Wiener Verpartnerungspaket". Press release, City of Vienna, December 21, 2009.
  19. ↑ Locked doors in Graz. In: Der Standard online, December 23, 2009.
  20. ↑ No celebratory setting for "gay marriage". ORF Vorarlberg, December 22, 2009.
  21. ^ Austria's first gay marriages: Four male couples in Vienna. In: Die Pesse online, January 4, 2010.
  22. ↑ Gay marriage: four couples "married". ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) oe24.at, January 4, 2010
  23. ^ First registered gay partnership. Kleine Zeitung , January 7, 2010, archived from the original on December 9, 2013 . ;- with video .
  24. ↑ The first Carinthians are now man and man. ( Memento from December 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung Kärnten online, January 7, 2010.
  25. ↑ Two women "married" in Salzburg. ( Memento from December 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung online, January 26, 2010.
  26. ↑ OOE - Registered partnership. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dbx.rainbow.or.at archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Rainbow-Online, Discussion: Contribution from January 20, 2010.
  27. ^ First gay marriage in Linz. In: Oberösterreichische Nachrichten online, date missing.