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Rights activists predicted more cases being brought against Bulgaria at the European Court of Human Rights after the Supreme Court of Cassation in Sofia ruled on Monday that transgender people will no longer be eligible to change documents in accordance with their identity.
“The constitution and Bulgarian legislation are built on the understanding of the binary existence of the human species,” the ruling said.
Twenty-eight judges voted in favour, but 21 expressed dissenting opinions. According to legal news website lex.bg, it was a rare case of an issue dividing the court so starkly.
The dissenting judges’ opinion said that the court’s decision imposed “a general, automatic and unified ban on legal gender change”.
They argued that “a legal change of gender is not in contradiction with the ‘binary existence of the human species’, because it does not refer to a ‘third gender’”.
Adela Katchaounova, legal defense programme director at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, criticised the court’s decision as a populist ruling “in favour of an imaginary public interest”.
“It shows a clear line of regression in judicial thinking in Bulgaria. The European Court of Human Rights has spoken before against such a hard line from the Bulgarian courts, which often ignore personal feelings of humiliation and defencelessness,” Katchaounova told BIRN.
balkaninsight.com
“The constitution and Bulgarian legislation are built on the understanding of the binary existence of the human species,” the ruling said.
Twenty-eight judges voted in favour, but 21 expressed dissenting opinions. According to legal news website lex.bg, it was a rare case of an issue dividing the court so starkly.
The dissenting judges’ opinion said that the court’s decision imposed “a general, automatic and unified ban on legal gender change”.
They argued that “a legal change of gender is not in contradiction with the ‘binary existence of the human species’, because it does not refer to a ‘third gender’”.
Adela Katchaounova, legal defense programme director at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, criticised the court’s decision as a populist ruling “in favour of an imaginary public interest”.
“It shows a clear line of regression in judicial thinking in Bulgaria. The European Court of Human Rights has spoken before against such a hard line from the Bulgarian courts, which often ignore personal feelings of humiliation and defencelessness,” Katchaounova told BIRN.
Bulgarian Supreme Court Rules Against Transgender People’s Rights
Citing the Bulgarian constitution’s view that sex is only biological, transgender people will no longer be eligible to change their documents in accordance with their identity, the Supreme Court ruled.
balkaninsight.com
