How do I register my marriage now that the referendum has passed

wowwee123

Hi,

Myself and my same sex partner got married in New York 2 years ago. Since then we have been only recognised as civil partners in Ireland. Obviously this will change now that the referendum has been passed. But can anyone give any advice on what we need to do to 'register' our marriage?

THanks

Daith

It will take a while. Legislation has to be passed by the Government first. It won't be until Autumn I guess that same sex couples can marry.

L1011

Its unlikely you'll need to do anything - once the legislation is passed, marriages which meet our legal requirements (which New York ones certainly will as we accept them for mixed-sex marriages) will be recognised automatically.

A potential issue I can see are with other countries civil partnership equivalents, would imagine another marriage ceremony will be required in these cases.

Daith

L1011 wrote: »

Its unlikely you'll need to do anything - once the legislation is passed, marriages which meet our legal requirements (which New York ones certainly will as we accept them for mixed-sex marriages) will be recognised automatically.

No, if you're registered as a Civil Partner here, you will have to register to get married. Don't think it automatically will happen.

baby and crumble

Daith wrote: »

No, if you're registered as a Civil Partner here, you will have to register to get married. Don't think it automatically will happen.

But they were registered only as civil partners here because their marriage wasn't recognised. I'd imagine they can transfer their marriage (as an above poster said, it's accepted for straight marriages from NY) without doing a whole lot.

Either way you'll have to wait until the legislation is actually passed, OP. I can't imagine they'll drag their feet on it, and it'll become clear in time what the actual procedures will be.

L1011

Daith wrote: »

No, if you're registered as a Civil Partner here, you will have to register to get married. Don't think it automatically will happen.

Foreign marriages are recognised not registered.

Domestic civil partnerships will not be automatically changed.

Aard

Considering that not all Civil Partnership'd couples are likely to “upgrade” to marriage.... we'll have this odd situation for the next ~80 years (basically until all people in CPs have died) whereby there will be loooads of married people (without distinction as to their sex) and a teeny tiny number of CP'd people. So all State forms, Census info etc will have to offer both options when it comes to “status”: single, married, civilly partnered. In addition to widow(er), and whatever the term is for a CP widow(er). And divorcé(e), as well as former civil partner (or, again, whatever the official term is). Is there ever an option for “remarried”? In that case, better add “once married, now CP”, “once CP, now married (to same person)”, “once CP, now married (to different person”, and “once CP, now re-CP (to different person) [assuming they re-civil partnered before the new marriage laws]”.

Not criticising or complaining, but just pointing out that four/five years of Civil Partnership will lead to an interesting bureaucratic anomaly for almost a century! And all to accomodate an ever-dwindling number of people!

wonderfulname

As soon as the legislation is enacted your marriage will automatically be recognised, with your existing NY marriage cert acceptable as proof if ever needed, much like if I ran off to Vegas in the morning and married someone of the opposite sex I'd still be married upon returning home. Ireland recognises any marriages that take place abroad so long as the same marriage could legally take place here.

I don't know what the situation is with being recognised as married and partnered simultaneously though. It's an interesting one, I'll come back on that.

Aard

Am I right in thinking that it won't be possible to get a civil partnership once the marriage legislation comes in?

danjo-xx

Aard wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that it won't be possible to get a civil partnership once the marriage legislation comes in?

Yes but existing CP's will continue unless they decide to upgrade.

CP's 'in waiting' will have option to change to CM

Annasopra

Noone knows the exact legal requirements. Its best to wait until they are announced.

Peregrinus

wonderfulname wrote: »

As soon as the legislation is enacted your marriage will automatically be recognised, with your existing NY marriage cert acceptable as proof if ever needed, much like if I ran off to Vegas in the morning and married someone of the opposite sex I'd still be married upon returning home. Ireland recognises any marriages that take place abroad so long as the same marriage could legally take place here.

Actually, I think the common-law rule is that country A will recognise a marriage celebrated in country B if it would have been recognisable in country A i]at the time of celebration[/i].

(The reason for this is practical. Suppose I go to country A and enter a marriage which, in my home country of B is not capable of recognition. The relationship breaks down and I return to country B where, I am legally single. I marry someone else in country B. Then the rules in country B change, and a marriage of the kind I entered years ago in country A becomes recognisable. Am I suddenly married to two people, and guilty of bigamy? No, is the answer.)

So in the OP's case the NY same-sex marriage was not recognised in Ireland at the time it was celebrated. If he wants to be legally married in Ireland, he'll have to legally marry once this becomes possible. Until he does that, he'll continue to be in a recognised civil partnership.

Peregrinus

Aard wrote: »

Not criticising or complaining, but just pointing out that four/five years of Civil Partnership will lead to an interesting bureaucratic anomaly for almost a century! And all to accomodate an ever-dwindling number of people!

Actually, I doubt that it will ever completely die out. Ireland intends to stop celebrating new civil partnerships, but some countries which have introduced same-sex marriage now run a dual system, where you can choose between being civilly-partnered, or being married. So, on the international scheme, civil partners are here to stay. And Irish law will need a mechanism to determine the status of people who get civilly-partnered in another country, and then migrate to Ireland. So my guess is that the civil partnership regime will remain, but in due time everyone subject to it will be someone who got civilly-partnered in another country.

L1011

Peregrinus wrote: »

Actually, I think the common-law rule is that country A will recognise a marriage celebrated in country B if it would have been recognisable in country A i]at the time of celebration[/i].

(The reason for this is practical. Suppose I go to country A and enter a marriage which, in my home country of B is not capable of recognition. The relationship breaks down and I return to country B where, I am legally single. I marry someone else in country B. Then the rules in country B change, and a marriage of the kind I entered years ago in country A becomes recognisable. Am I suddenly married to two people, and guilty of bigamy? No, is the answer.)

So in the OP's case the NY same-sex marriage was not recognised in Ireland at the time it was celebrated. If he wants to be legally married in Ireland, he'll have to legally marry once this becomes possible. Until he does that, he'll continue to be in a recognised civil partnership.

We recognised civil/registered/domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages from abroad that met our legal standards (so not the French PACS, for instances) regardless of when they took place - a Danish CP from 1996 was entirely legal. I'm pretty certain the same will be the case here.

Annasopra

This is all speculation

Peregrinus

L1011 wrote: »

We recognised civil/registered/domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages from abroad that met our legal standards (so not the French PACS, for instances) regardless of when they took place - a Danish CP from 1996 was entirely legal. I'm pretty certain the same will be the case here.

Yes, but we weren't applying an existing common-law rule.

There are problems with retrospective recognition of marriages. One I have already pointed to - at a time when they were legally not married, somebody might have made some decision, or done some act, in reliance on that status, and enforcing a retrospective status change on them would obviously be unjust, and could have arbitrary or unwelcome outcomes.

The other problem is lack of equal treatment. If we don't retrospectively recognise a same-sex marriage conducted in Ireland in the past - and there is no proposal to do this - then does it make sense to give retrospective recognition to same-sex marriages celebrated abroad?

Peregrinus

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

This is all speculation

Actually, not all. The Government has already published a "general scheme" for the Marriage Bill 2015, which sets out at least the major changes that they propose to make to the existing legislation in order to accommodate same-sex marriage.

Plus, there are established rules and principles that operate with regard to the recognition of marriages celebrated outside Ireland in places where the law may differ from ours, and it's reasonable to expect that the approach taken here will, all other things being equal, be consistent with the existing rules and practices.

FWIW, the general scheme that has been published does not deal explicitly with the recognition of foreign same-sex marriages. I don't think there can be any doubt that foreign same-sex marriages celebrated in the future, when Irish law has changed, will be recognised; the only issue is with regard to foreign ceremonies celebrated before that date. Will they be automatically retrospectively upgraded? L1011 thinks so, but I'm doubtful. I think they'll continue to have whatever degree of recognition they currently have (which in some cases will be none at all) with the partners concerned having the right to "upgrade" if they so wish.

L1011

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yes, but we weren't applying an existing common-law rule.

We replaced pretty much the entire reliance on common law for marriage with the Civil Registration Act, though. There was a comprehensive legal reform programme designed to remove the use of common law and centuries old statute law in a number of areas and marriage was one of them.

Absolutely nothing stops them legislating for automatic recognition regardless of date.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The other problem is lack of equal treatment. If we don't retrospectively recognise a same-sex marriage conducted in Ireland in the past - and there is no proposal to do this - then does it make sense to give retrospective recognition to same-sex marriages celebrated abroad?

This is getting to ludicrous - there have been no legal same sex marriages conducted in Ireland to this point in time. This isn't comparing apples and oranges, this is comparing apples and [void].

Peregrinus

L1011 wrote: »

We replaced pretty much the entire reliance on common law for marriage with the Civil Registration Act, though. There was a comprehensive legal reform programme designed to remove the use of common law and centuries old statute law in a number of areas and marriage was one of them.

Pretty much the entire reliance on common law, perhaps, but not absolutely the entire reliance. One area where we made no change at all was on the recognition of foreign marriages, where the common law rules still apply, without (as far as I can see) any modification at all.

L1011 wrote: »

Absolutely nothing stops them legislating for automatic recognition regardless of date.

Indeed. But they will have to legislate for it. If they persist in the present policy of leaving the recognition of foreign weddings to be governed by common law, then "historic" foreign same-sex marriages will not be retrospectively validated.

And, as Joeytheparrot says, any prediction about what they will legislate for involves a degree of speculation. But I have three reasons for thinking that they won't legislate as you suggest.

First, they have published the general scheme of the Marriage Bill. It doesn't contain anything along the lines you suggest. It indicates the existing foreign arrangements which enjoy recognition as civil partnerships will continue to do so, and that recognised civil partnerships (Irish or foreign) will be dissolved if the couple concerned marries. That doesn't explicitly address foreign marriages recognised as civil partnerships, but it provides a framework within which they can be addressed, and it contains nothing to carve them out of those provisions and accord a different treatment to them.

Secondly, as already pointed out, it would create the possibility of significant anomalies or unintended outcomes.

Thirdly, the whole philosophy which underlies the equal marriage movement is that the same rules should apply to same-sex and opposite-sex marriages. In this regard, the common-law rules apply to opposite-sex marriages and I haven't heard any suggestion that this is unsatisfactory, or needs to be changed.

(Finally, should I point out that, following the announcement of the result, Senator Zappone proposed to her wife, who she married in Canada some years ago? Clearly she's of my view on this matter )

L1011 wrote: »

This is getting to ludicrous - there have been no legal same sex marriages conducted in Ireland to this point in time. This isn't comparing apples and oranges, this is comparing apples and [void].

Same-sex marriages have not been recognised in Ireland up to now, but they have certainly been conducted here - the HAI has been conducting them for years, as have one or two religious denominations. (Those conducting them have been at pains, of course, to make sure that the couple understands that the marriage does not attract legal recognition.)

(Another area in which Irish law on marriage has not departed from the common law is that it doesn't purport to create the institution of marriage - just to register and recognise marriages that are created by the consent of the parties.)

L1011

Peregrinus wrote: »

(Finally, should I point out that, following the announcement of the result, Senator Zappone proposed to her wife, who she married in Canada some years ago? Clearly she's of my view on this matter )

No, she stated it was to do it in Ireland; not because she thought she had to.

I'd be willing to lay money that they'll recognise pre-existing foreign marriages. It would be insane not to.

Peregrinus

L1011 wrote: »

I'd be willing to lay money that they'll recognise pre-existing foreign marriages. It would be insane not to.

I guess time will tell!