October 2023 – Judgment of the Supreme Court No. 1099/2023 – Reversal of a decision of the Athens Court of Appeal, which rejected the recognition of a South African court’s decision designating a male couple as parents of a child born to a surrogate mother as contrary to Greek public policy
By judgment No 1099/2023, the Supreme Court annulled a decision of the Athens Court of Appeal, which had rejected as contrary to Greek public policy the recognition of a decision of a South African court designating a male couple as parents of a child born of a surrogate mother. The judgment upheld the ground of appeal on the ground of failure to take into consideration a factual claim and held in particular that the error in the judgment was that it stated as a ground for non-recognition that the adoption of a minor in Greece is not permitted to same-sex couples, not taking into account that in the present case it was a specific child born to a specific family from a surrogate mother, and not in the abstract a minor whose suitable family for adoption must be found. This is an unprecedented decision on the recognition of families of persons of the same sex in Greece, which reopens the discussion of the merits of the case in the Court of Appeal.
The judgment of 14 December 2021 of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C 490/20, (V.М.А. v Stolichna obshtina, rayon "Pancharevo") in dialogue with the decision 9/2016 of the of the Greek Supreme Court: the criteria for cross-border recognition of personal status and the treatment of "impaired" legal relations in the case of same-sex families