Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 166
August-September 2013
De Ram v. France (dec.) - 38275/10
Decision 27.8.2013 [Section V]
Article 14
Discrimination
Exclusion owing to date of birth from benefit of new rules governing the transmission of surnames: inadmissible
Facts – The first applicant, Mr Luc De Ram, a Belgian national, and his wife Mrs Jossia Berou (married name De Ram), a French national, have two daughters – the second and third applicants – born in 1986 and 1989 respectively. The children were born within the marriage and were entered in the civil register under their father’s surname, in accordance with the legislation in force. However, their parents decided that, for everyday purposes, the girls should use the first applicant’s surname followed by that of his wife (De Ram-Berou), as permitted by law.
In March 2002 the legislature enacted a new law concerning surnames, which was amended in June 2003 by the law on the transmission of surnames. These introduced far-reaching changes to the rules on children’s surnames and allowed parents to give their children the father or mother’s surname or the two surnames combined, in whichever order they saw fit. However, those provisions did not apply to children born before 1 January 2005. For children born before that date, the law provided for transitional arrangements allowing parents who had parental responsibility, where the eldest child had been born after 1 September 1990, to request that the second parent’s surname be added after the first parent’s. Because of their dates of birth, the second and third applicants were not covered by these provisions. In 2003 Mr De Ram filed a request under Article 61 of the Civil Code on behalf of his two minor daughters to have their surname changed, seeking to have them entered in the civil register under the name De Ram-Berou. The request was mainly motivated by the fact that the two girls, who had lived all their lives in Belgium, had experienced considerable difficulties in having their usual surname recognised by the Belgian authorities. The request was refused on the grounds that the wish to allow the first applicant’s daughters to use the surname by which they were commonly known in place of the name entered in the civil register did not constitute a “legitimate interest” within the meaning of Article 61 of the Civil Code.
Law – Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 8: The second and third applicants, who had been born in 1986 and 1989 respectively, could not claim entitlement under the new provisions and their situation was governed by the previous legislation, which did not allow the mother’s surname to be added to the father’s. The applicants were therefore complaining of a difference in treatment between children born before 1 September 1990 and those born after that date, stemming directly from the transitional provisions of the 2002 and 2003 laws. The distinction, based on the children’s date of birth, came under the heading of “other status” within the meaning of Article 14 of the Convention.
Furthermore, it had an objective and reasonable justification. The application over time of the above-mentioned laws as adjusted by the transitional provisions had clearly been the result of a balancing exercise between, on the one hand, the principle of the immutability of civil status, aimed at ensuring legal certainty in view of the significant impact which the change in the legislation would inevitably have on the keeping of the civil register, and, on the other hand, the interest of children in adding to the surname given to them at birth, in accordance with the new legislation. The age criterion laid down by the legislature, which imposed conditions on the possibility of adding the second parent’s surname, coincided with the right afforded elsewhere to children over the age of thirteen to consent to a change of surname. Accordingly, this distinction between children could not be regarded as arbitrary. Consequently, the transitional arrangements had pursued a legitimate aim capable of justifying the difference in treatment at issue. Furthermore, the applicants had availed themselves of the opportunity afforded to them under domestic law of instituting proceedings to have the children’s surname changed. Their request had been examined in adversarial proceedings at three levels of jurisdiction. The Court could understand their disappointment at seeing their request refused, in view of the new possibilities offered by the 2002 and 2003 laws regarding the rules on the transmission of surnames. However, the second and third applicants had used the surname by which they were commonly known throughout their school careers in Belgium and had not alleged that they were unable to continue doing so. In view of the foregoing considerations, the difference in treatment to which the applicants had been subjected had been reasonably and objectively justified by the need to ensure a gradual transition in the rules governing the transmission of surnames and by the legitimate decision to take into consideration the principles of legal certainty and the immutability of surnames by deciding to exclude from those arrangements children born prior to the entry into force of the 2002 and 2003 laws who had been born before 1 September 1990. The consequences of the difference in treatment at issue had not been disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy