[Vision2020] Brazilian Court Council Removes a Barrier to Same-Sex Marriage

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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May 14, 2013
Brazilian Court Council Removes a Barrier to Same-Sex Marriage By SIMON
ROMERO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/simon_romero/index.html>

RIO DE JANEIRO — The council overseeing
Brazil<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/brazil/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>’s
judiciary ruled on Tuesday that notary publics cannot refuse to
perform same-sex
marriage<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>ceremonies,
a decision that opens the way for gay couples across Latin
America’s largest country to marry.

The move by the National Council of Justice, a 15-member panel led by
Joaquim Barbosa, the chief justice of the nation’s high court, effectively
legalizes gay marriage throughout Brazil, legal scholars here said. The
decision follows legislation in
two<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/americas/16argentina.html>neighboring
countries, Argentina and Uruguay, where lawmakers have managed
to pass bills authorizing same-sex marriage nationwide in recent years.

Still, there is some room for judicial appeals of the Brazilian decision,
potentially within the high court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal, and
resistance may emerge in Congress, where gay-marriage legislation has faced
opposition from an influential bloc of evangelical Christian lawmakers.
Even so, supporters of same-sex marriage described the council’s decision
as pioneering.

“This resolution will end the resistance of some courts, judges and notary
publics,” said Maria Berenice Dias, the vice president of the Brazilian
Institute of Family Law, a nonprofit organization that has sought for years
to extend marriage benefits to gay couples.

The National Council of Justice, which includes prominent judges,
prosecutors and lawyers, voted 14 to 1 in favor of the measure. Under the
council’s decision, notary publics will also be required to convert
same-sex civil unions into marriages, if couples wish to do so.

In 2011, the high court ruled by a comfortable margin that same-sex civil
unions should be allowed. But while such unions provide couples in Brazil
with access to benefits like health insurance and the division of assets in
cases of separation, the council’s decision provides same-sex couples who
marry with the same standing as heterosexuals, allowing them, for instance,
to take each other’s surnames and adopt children more easily.

In certain ways, the decision broadens what has already unfolded in
different of parts of Brazil, where legislatures in more than 10 states
have legalized same-sex marriage.

But even with such laws, many notary publics — who not only certify but
also carry out marriage ceremonies in Brazil — have refused to comply for
gay couples, a resistance that has been backed by some of the regional
judges who oversee them.

“The Supreme Federal Tribunal had already shown that it was supporting
minority rights by supporting gay unions,” said Thiago Bottino, a law
professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a top university. “The council’s
decision is logical, since it would not make sense to deprive people of
their rights because some notary publics and judges saw things
differently.”

Brazil’s courts generally hew to the decisions of the National Council of
Justice, which was created in 2004 and has functioned largely as a
disciplinary body for the judiciary. But Congress could be another matter,
as tensions simmer between Brazil’s legislative and judicial branches over
the high court’s conviction of
legislators<http://m.nyt.com/2013/05/11/world/americas/despite-convictions-brazil-corruption-case-remains-open.html?from=world>involved
in a vast vote-buying scandal.

Moreover, legislators who oppose same-sex marriage have recently grown more
vocal in Congress. Marco Feliciano, a conservative evangelical preacher who
now leads the lower house’s commission for human rights and minorities, has
drawn criticism for comments that gay-rights activists call homophobic, but
he has resisted pressure to step down from the post.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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