Upgrading from Civil Partnership to Civil Marriage.

danjo-xx

On the data capture form which is for 'all' couples what box is the correct one to tick if all ready in a civil partnership. The single box seems only option but not exactly appropriate.

Should there not have been a box labled 'civil partnership'




Paying Registration fee of €200 twice. Alan Shatter has said that CP's shouldn't have to pay twice. But nothing official yet.


How to Apply: It seems,

1. Fill out the data capture form.

2. Ring up and make an appointment with Registar.

3. Both parties must attend appointment where they will be given a date, which will be a minimum of 3 months forward.

4. On day of registration a Civil Marriage Cert will be issued and this automatically cancels civil partnership.

Peregrinus

What form is this extract from? Is it a form to be completed by people intending to marry?

Under current Irish law, a person in a civil partnership is not free to marry. Consequently if this form is for people who intend to marry, nobody filling out this form will be in a civil partnership.

The law is going to change, obviously, and I'm guessing that one change will be that, if you are in a civil partnership, you are free to marry your current civil partner, but no-one else. And when that change is enacted the form will have to be updated to accommodate that possibilility.

L1011

The form won't have been changed yet as the actual law hasn't been changed yet.

danjo-xx

Several site were linking to that form, as how to apply, when I saw CP dissolved on it, I thought just maybe it had been updated.

gazzer

Im very interested in how this process is going to work. Myself and my partner had a civil partnership back in 2012. We want to turn this into a marriage but would prefer to do it on the same date as the anniversary of our CP. That rules out this year (anniversary is in August) though.

SpaceTime

In the big scheme of things the 3000-4000 people who have availed of civil partnership in Ireland switching over to full marriage, isn't exactly a massive bureaucratic caseload for the registrars.

I guess the simplest approach would be to allow people to opt to have just the paperwork upgraded quite quickly at no charge.

Given the inherent unfairness of the whole concept of civil partnership in the first place, I don't think it's unreasonable that this is just processed based on the fees they've already paid.

Am I also correct in assuming that civil partnerships will no longer be available to new applicants once the marriage laws are finalised?

danjo-xx

SpaceTime wrote: »

In the big scheme of things the 3000-4000 people who have availed of civil partnership in Ireland switching over to full marriage, isn't exactly a massive bureaucratic caseload for the registrars.

I guess the simplest approach would be to allow people to opt to have just the paperwork upgraded quite quickly at no charge.

Given the inherent unfairness of the whole concept of civil partnership in the first place, I don't think it's unreasonable that this is just processed based on the fees they've already paid.

Am I also correct in assuming that civil partnerships will no longer be available to new applicants once the marriage laws are finalised?

Correct but existing CP's will continue for those that do not wish to get married.

SpaceTime

danjo-xx wrote: »

Correct but existing CP's will continue for those that do not wish to get married.

Seems odd, will they extend them to heterosexual couples then?

pl4ichjgy17zwd

SpaceTime wrote: »

Seems odd, will they extend them to heterosexual couples then?

I think they meant no new CPs will be performed but those that are already in them will continue to exist, ie, won't be automatically dissolved.

SpaceTime

Mario Fat Scaffolding wrote: »

I think they meant no new CPs will be performed but those that are already in them will continue to exist, ie, won't be automatically dissolved.

That's what I meant too!

pl4ichjgy17zwd

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's what I meant too!

Sorry, I must've misread. I thought you were asking if they would be extended to heterosexual couples...which obviously couldn't happen if they weren't being performed anymore.

SpaceTime

Mario Fat Scaffolding wrote: »

Sorry, I must've misread. I thought you were asking if they would be extended to heterosexual couples...which obviously couldn't happen if they weren't being performed anymore.

Yeah, I just meant it would be a little odd to retain them for new applicants.

France seems to have retained PACS (pacte civil de solidarité) which is actually an alternative to straight marriage too with 94% of them being conducted between heterosexual couples!

I know of a few people who are "pacsé" rather than "marié" who have serious issues as they're often not recognised abroad unless you're a gay couple.

It was sort of an odd concept that was pushed through to get same sex civil unions through parliament.

I've a lot of connections to France and despite their absolute secularism of state, it's quite shocking to see how controversial gay marriage has been over there. It is on the books now, but the protests against, the vitriol etc would remind you more of the US Bible Belt than what is supposedly one of Europe's most liberal and forward thinking, secular societies, or at least it was in the bast.

I still vaguely remember Christine Boutin a Christian Democratic Party former MP in France (very small party with I think just her seat) talking for 5 hours in parliament waving a bible around! (Actually deeply unconstitutional to do that under French "laïcité" which strictly separates religion and state affairs.

The whole same sex marriage debate in France that's rolled on since the late 90s and more so the absolutely vicious protests against the recent same sex marriage legislation that came in through parliament (not referendum) have actually put me right off ever living there.

I just find the whole rise of the far right over there quite scary.

pl4ichjgy17zwd

Ah, I understand what you mean now. I would imagine if we don't recognise overseas civil partnerships for heterosexual couples now that that won't change, but I have no idea really.

I have an aunt (well, one of my mom's close friends) in France and she was telling me about the vitriol and protests - seemed downright scary.

SpaceTime

It was horrible. it's honestly not something I'd have expected from a country like France. It really changed how I see the place.

Spain (lived there too) strikes me as bit like Ireland, came out from under an even more repressive Catholic dictatorship regime and has turned out to be extremely open-minded.
They've full marriage equality since 2005 and I always sense from my experience living there that there's a feeling of nation pride about it - that it's one of the things that symbolises "modern Spain".

It's also very interesting to see that under extreme economic pressure both Ireland and Spain swung towards solidarity and somewhat more left leaning outlooks and analysing what actually went wrong where as France and others are seeing massive rises of the extreme right appear to just be blaming immigration on absolutely everything.

These things really do tell a lot about a country and I genuinely think that vote on Friday gives a lot of insight into 21st century Irish attitudes.

Maybe Ireland, Spain and a few other places have genuinely learnt bitterly painful lessons from our past?

(Gone slightly OT there ... )

I guess civil partners will just have to wait and see.

What I would stress though is you need to monitor the debates and be prepared to contact TDs and ministers if the drafting of the marriage equality legislation isn't quite right.

There's still a lot of input possibilities over the next few months so, make sure everyone pays careful attention to the whole process!

I'm not saying anyone will try to do anything sneaky, but just make sure to read through it and ensure there's nothing overlooked. It's a big opportunity to get these things very right.

L1011

SpaceTime wrote: »

I know of a few people who are "pacsé" rather than "marié" who have serious issues as they're often not recognised abroad unless you're a gay couple.

And not recognised here at all, as the seperation requirements were deemed unacceptable

rosobel

This is going to end up like changing your name as a Transsexual, I know this sounds off topic but it's actually not. See when you change your name you are really only required to do it in a solicitors office (actually you can change your name by just saying out loud "I am now called XXXX" and it is totally legal). There is another part where you can register it in the courts but that's not a requirement, like if you don't register your deed poll doesn't make it any less legal but if you are transsexual most organisations (banks, ESB etc.) won't accept a deed poll unless it is registered and stamped by the courts (sure even the Social Welfare won't accept a deed poll unless it is stamped by the courts) because they haven't got a clue about the law surrounding name changes and this will be the same for civil marriages for the next few years.

I'm willing to bet that no one in a position of authority will have a clue about the difference between a civil partnership and a civil marriage so unless you have every form stamped by the courts they most likely won't accept it. Getting the Yes vote was cool and all but it will mean nothing if the people who process our info have no idea how to deal with what they are processing because it will just create a lot of unnecessary red tape.

SpaceTime

Honestly I think unless you're encountering institutional or individual homophobia, the public bodies will know how to process everything.

Being unaware of impending changes due to same sex marriage would be utterly ignorant you'd have to have been living in an isolation tank not to have noticed it.

One query I have though is will you be able to take one partners last name or both go double-barrel if you want to?

There seems to be no restriction on women taking husbands last names or going double barrel or just leaving it as is and keeping their own last name.

What has the convention been on this elsewhere?

I've always thought ditching the woman's name is a BIT sexist and patriarchal.

However there are definitely cases of guys taking their wives names, historically where she was from a more powerful family or where the guy had an awful sounding surname (I know one person who did this because he really disliked his surname).

Most women I know who've married haven't changed names at all. They just continued with their own name as it would be hugely disruptive to their professional life and they considered it a bit sexist.

The Spanish system of merging both names is nice.

L1011

SpaceTime wrote: »

One query I have though is will you be able to take one partners last name or both go double-barrel if you want to?

You can already do this on civil partnership. Pick one, both or neither. It will definitely continue to be the case with marriage.

Your name in Ireland is nowhere near as heavily regulated as other countries and works nearly entirely on use rather than anything else.