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LGBT civil-union between Portuguese and Moroccan - recognized in Ireland?

  • 22-06-2020 8:27pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 4


    Hi, I was wondering if someone could help me with some knowledge of information related to this topic.

    I am a Portuguese female citizen who has lived in Ireland for 16 years. My partner is Moroccan and resides in Morocco. We have been in a long distance relationship for a few years, however, the long distance has become difficult as it is very costly to visit her.

    She has never lived outside of Morocco. I often fly out to see her, and sometimes she visits me while I'm on holiday in France, as it;s easy for her to get a visa to come see me there.

    We've been hoping to get married for a long time and I feel we are in the right place financially and career wise to do so.

    However, Morocco has strict laws against same-sex relationships, so getting married in Morocco is completely out of the question.

    So we are hoping to get married in Ireland, although we are looking into Denmark as a last resort (Due to fast paperwork).

    How would I go about marrying her in Ireland, while she is on tourist visa and officialise the union-ship without Morocco being contacted and asked to grant permission for the marriage?

    And if she has to return back to Morocco after marrying me. She is technically supposed to get a spouse visa in order to move to Ireland for good. However Morocco would never allow this as its illegal.

    How would she be able to go around this?

    Thanks so much for the help we are really really desperate for answers and find extremely difficult to find information, if someone could point us to the right direction it would be extremely appreciated.

    Kind Regards
    Rachel


Comments

  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,098 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Any partnership which is equivalent to marriage is recognised here - but not civil partnerships/civil unions. So Italian, Swiss etc civil unions are not.

    Visas even after marriage are not automatic and the DFA may not be easily convinced to give one for a long-distance relationship; although I think you would have rights to live together elsewhere in the EU under EAA partner rights


  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,098 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Actually, I failed to notice that you're an EEA national as it stands - this changes things and may actually make life easier.

    You should talk to an immigration solicitor to be certain.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    A couple of things need clarifying.

    First, OP, your thread header refers to “LGBT civil union” but the body of your post talks about getting married. Civil union/civil partnership and marriage are two different things, legally speaking. it appears that you want to get married in Ireland. Unless you’re already in a civil union/civil partnership, I don’t think civil union/civil partnership is at all relevant to your situation.

    (L1011 - in general Ireland stopped celebrating civil partnerships or recognising foreign civil partnerships in 2016, since same-sex couples have been free to marry since that date. But if you have a pre-2016 civil partnership that was celebrated in certain other countries, you can still get that recognised as a civil partnership in Ireland.)

    OP - so far as I know, the Irish government will not contact the Moroccan authorities (or require either you or your partner to contact the Moroccan authorities) to “ask their permission for the marriage”. The Irish government does not need the permission of foreign governments to celebrate marriages in Ireland.

    But your partner will need to produce some documentation from Morocco - her birth certificate, her identity card, documents in relation to any previous marriage she has been in - and she may need to get these certified by the Moroccan authorities. But I don’t see that she needs to tell the Moroccan authorities that the reason she wants them is to get married abroad, still less to marry a woman.

    Similarly with regard to a visa for your partner to settle in Ireland - these are issued by the Irish government. They do not care what view the Moroccan government has of the matter, and they will not be in contact with the Moroccan government about it. Again, your partner will probably need to liaise with the Moroccan authorities to get documents or records to give to the Irish authorities in support of her visa application, but there is no reason why she should tell the Moroccan authorities that the reason she wants the documents is because she is moving to Ireland because her wife lives there.


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