Panama’s Supreme Court of Justice has refused to recognize same-sex marriage as a human right, finding that mentions in its Family Code and its Code of Private International Law that refer to marriage exclusively between a man and a woman are not unconstitutional.
In its ruling, the Court specifies that “there is a reality, and that is that, up to now, the right to equal marriage is no more than an aspiration which, although legitimate for the groups involved, does not have the status of a human right and is not even a fundamental right”.
It thus responds to the appeals that, since 2016, called for the review of some articles of the codes above for their possible unconstitutionality.
According to the Panamanian newspaper ‘El Siglo’, the following texts have been reviewed:
- the phrase “between a man and a woman” in article 26 of the Family Code of the Republic of Panama,
- the expression “persons of the same sex” of precept 34, numeral 1 of the same code,
- the text “marriage between individuals of the same sex is prohibited” in article 35 of the law, dating from October 2015, of the Code of Private International Law of the country.
They add that “no matter how many changes occur in reality”, the Supreme Court “does not have the power to decree or proclaim fundamental rights that are not positivized”.
With information from LGI