2024-10-18 14:45 update: 2024-10-18, 14:47
Photo PAP/Lukasz Gagulski
Two draft laws granting the right to form civil partnerships by both same-sex and opposite-sex couples was published on Friday by the Polish government's legislative centre.
They can now be submitted for inter-ministerial discussions and public consultations.
The proposed legislation includes a bill on legally registered partnerships and one introducing it. It envisages that a partnership is registered when unmarried adults, regardless of their gender submit consistent declarations of entering into a partnership before the head of a registry office.
"It's official! The draft laws on registered partnerships, which were discussed with non-governmental organisations, have been sent for public and inter-ministerial consultations. This is a very important day for me, because I am handing over to you the result of many months of work of our entire team," Katarzyna Kotula, minister for equality, wrote on the X platform on Friday.
The proposed legislation, would allow couples remaining in partnership to establish a joint property or separation of property with equalisation of acquired assets by means of an agreement in the form of a notarial deed.
The draft, however, does not provide for the right for one partner in a same-sex couple to legally adopt the child of the other partner, Kotula said.
"Here we have taken a compromise, a step back, she admitted, adding that some provisions envisage the introduction of the so-called minor care.
"A person in a civil partnership is entitled to participate in the ongoing care of a child residing together with them, who remains under the parental authority of the other person in the partnership, and in their upbringing, including making decisions in matters of everyday life, unless either of the parents exercising parental authority over the child objects to this," says one of the provision of the draft law.
Poland is one of five European Union member states that do not allow same-sex couples to formalise their relationships. This issue remains unregulated also in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, and Slovakia. (PAP)
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