Court stays issuing of marriage banns

The marriage banns for a transsexual, who was born a man but legally declared a woman following surgery, must not be issued within the next 40 days, a court has ruled.

Mr Justice Joseph R. Micallef gave the ruling in a case initiated by the director of Public Registry requesting the reversal of a court decree ordering marriage banns to be issued in favour of the transsexual and her male partner.

In staying the issuing of the marriage banns for 40 days the judge ruled that this was to ensure that the interests of both parties involved in the case would not be compromised.

On February 12 Mr Justice Gino Camilleri ordered the director of Public Registry to issue the marriage banns for the transsexual after noting that the union between the transsexual, now a woman, and her male partner did not contravene any provision of the Marriage Act.

A week later, on February 28, the director of Public Registry, in his capacity as Registrar of Marriages, filed an application requesting the reversal of the court decree permitting marriage banns to be issued.

In his application the director argued that the change in the Act of Birth of the transsexual, allowing a change of name and gender, was only intended to protect the right to privacy and to avoid embarrassment.

Such a change, the director said, should not mean that the person is considered a female for the purpose of marriage since the surgery was cosmetic and, therefore, the person involved was essentially still a man.

Then, last week, the director filed an urgent application in which he outlined that on March 1 the transsexual's lawyers had gone to the Public Registry and insisted, even through a legal letter, that they fix an appointment so their client could apply for the marriage banns to be issued. The registry had to set the date to March 7.

In it the urgent application the director argued that, if he was forced to issue the marriage banns, the requests made in the application filed on February 28 (requesting the revocation of the judgement allowing the marriage banns to be issued) would be "irremediably prejudiced".

So he filed the application with urgency requesting the court to authorise him not to issue the marriage banns until the original application was decided upon.

Mr Justice Micallef upheld the application as it seemed wise not to do anything that could prejudice the case of either party until the application was decided on.