Ukraine may legalize civil partnerships – what the new law can change
What are civil partnerships, who can enter into them, and why this bill is not just for the LGBT community – NV explains Ukraine’s new moves to-wards marriage equality.
New rights and opportunities
Draft law No. 9103 “On the Institute of Registered Partnerships” appeared on the website of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, on March 13, 2023. This draft law provides for the creation of a new format of civil-legal relations – registered partnerships, commonly called civil partnerships in other countries. This type of partnership can be entered into between two persons of any gender, and provides the pair with a status equal to that of close relatives.
On April 7, 2023, the draft law was backed by the parliamentary youth and sports committee and recommended for adoption by the Verkhovna Rada. On April 26, the relevant petition on the president’s website gained the required 25,000 votes.
Read also: Zelenskyy responds to civil partnerships petition
Due to the wording that such a partnership can be entered into by both persons of different sexes and of the same sex, social networks and the media often call this bill as an “alternative to same-sex marriage” and “a bill for LGBT people.” But this isn’t entirely accurate – these registered partnerships can also be concluded between two people who are not in a romantic relationship with each other. Registered partnerships are more like the ability to legally “procreate” with another person who is not a blood relative and with whom marriage has not been concluded.
“This project covers not only people of the same sex, but also people of different sexes,” Maksym Potapovych, a representative of the Ukrainian LGBT Military for Equal Rights NGO, told NV in a comment.
“Partnerships define any union of two people as a family, according to which individuals acquire certain status, rights and responsibilities. It can be, for example, neighbors or two grandmothers who want to enter into such a union, so that in emergency situations, one person has access to intensive care, if it is hospitalization, inheritance of property, etc.”
In European countries, such as France, partnerships of these type are more popular than marriage as such, especially among young people, says Potapovych. About 70% of couples, according to him, choose civil partnerships, because it is both more transparent and carries less baggage than traditional marriage. In addition, civil partnerships are easier to join, as well as to break – if necessary.
In Ukraine, this variant of civil partnership will allow expand people’s abilities to jointly own property, take out health insurance, handle inheritance, obtain preferential lending terms for families, ask for sick leave due to a partner’s illness, maintenance and care of a disabled partner, etc.
In additional, registered partnerships provide members with a whole series of mortal rights – that is, rights related to the death of a partner, explains Potapovych. In other words, a registered partnership can allow a person to ensure that that their partner’s last wishes respected, including joint burials and pension transfers upon the death of a breadwinner.
“These are, in fact, all the same rights provided for by any normative legal document, as well as the Family Code, but without the possibility of adoption and guardianship of children by such a couple,” says Potapovych.
“Less formalistic and simpler”
Dmytro Derkach, originally from Rivne, and his partner, Sofia, originally from Obukhiv, have been together for a year and a half. On April 9, 2023, they published a post on Facebook where they called on Ukrainians to sign the civil partnership petition on the president’s website, which at that time had not yet gained the required number of votes.
“Everyone needs this bill, not only same-sex couples and LGBT+ military personnel,” the post reads.
Read also: Zelenskyy is sent petition asking to legalize same-sex marriages
“Because death hangs over us every day. It sounds creepy, but at least we will have the right to identify the body of our partner and access to all the information that will be related to the death. We also need it because we want to be partners at the moment, not spouses. We want to have legal rights over each other, but in a different format.”
“In our opinion, marriage is something more sacred and valuable, and has a much more serious and official character,” Derkach told NV.
“Therefore, we are not yet ready for such a step. Partnership provides us with an important list of rights that we would like to have. For us, this is rather a transitional stage before marriage. And I don’t think that partnerships can somehow devalue the institution of marriage.”
Dmytro and Sofia emphasize that this law will be important not only for same-sex couples, and not only for LGBT people – though Ukraine’s LGBT citizens have been some of the bill’s most vocal proponents.
“The topic of LGBT rights is very important, and it has become even more acute with the full-scale invasion because LGBT couples cannot have the rights that hetero couples have,” Derkach said.
“This is now a big problem for the military. We must do everything we can to improve this situation and help our defenders.”
He adds that he knows other hetero couples who believe that the institution of marriage as such is not for them. Registered partnerships, on the other hand, look less formalistic and simpler, so they may interest those who are not ready to get married.
Bonus for military personnel
Registered partnerships can come in handy for military personnel, in particular LGBT military personnel, explains Potapovych. When joining the army, servicemen must fill out a questionnaire with personal data, where they must indicate, in particular, the contacts of their closest relatives who can be contacted in case something happens to the soldier himself. However, soldiers are restricted to indicating only blood or marital relatives: husband, wife, or parents. Soldiers cannot include the names of people that do not fall into that category, including romantic partner.
“We have a military officer, Oleksandr, in our organization,” Potapovych explained.
“He is closeted [a term for LGBT people who have not publicly announced their orientation - ed.], and has a partner,” Potapovuch said.
“In his questionnaire, he wanted to indicate his partner as a brother, but he was not able to do so.”
Meanwhile, military officer Viktor Komkov has been fighting for more than a year, since May 3, 2022. He joined the army because he wanted to protect not only Ukrainian lands, but also valuable ideals – to defend Ukraine’s path to the future.
“Different citizens have different visions of where to move,” Komkov said.
“I have European values. This is civil society, freedom and democracy – when an individual citizen, an individual is an important part of this society, has obligations to the state and certain rights.”
He added that the fact that individual citizens do not have equal rights with others seems strange to him. Therefore, civil partnerships are only one of the “pillars” that could equalize rights and opportunities for different people, says Komkov.
“This is one of the things I fought for, took part in military operations,” he said.
Read also: Platform created to help Ukrainian soldiers rebuild their sex life after injuries
The service member emphasizes that registered partnerships are not only for same-sex couples, but also for heterosexual ones. However, it is impossible to amend the Constitution to introduce same-sex marriages during martial law.
“LGBT military personnel, from what I’ve seen, are all in favor of this law,” the serviceman said.
“As for other people in my entourage, most people support it as well. Before the war, I worked in the IT field and communicated a lot with the English-speaking environment, these people treat such things, let’s say, more loyally.”
An intermediate stage to test the relationship
NV spoke to Yulian Denysenko, who is in a relationship with a transgender woman named Sheril. She is currently in the process of changing her documents and name to match her preferred gender. Sheril would like to have a classic wedding, says Yulian. However, he believes that an intermediate stage is needed – one where the couple could fix certain agreements between themselves, discuss expectations fpor each other, and try to be in a partnership first. If they both understand that they are moving in the same direction, they can take the relationship further, to the next level.
“In short, my opinion is that earlier, when people’s life expectancy was, for example, 30-40 years, and then people died, marriage was not a bad thing,” said Denysenko.
“People had time to get married, pass on their genetic information, have children, and then die. But now medicine has evolved, life expectancy has increased. And it is a bit wrong to immediately go to marriage. I think that a high-quality, healthy, strong marriage, on the contrary, is possible only when a person can understand why they need it. And this understanding comes precisely during relationships, and often as a result of the experience of relationships with different people.”
In his opinion, this outlook could become a new step in the development of Ukrainian society and culture. Children should be taught that they should grow up and make balanced, adult decisions – not rush into marriage, Denysenko believes. Registered partnerships could help make that happen.
“Freedom is a very important value for Ukrainians,” he said.
“Registered partnerships are precisely what allow young people to be free and protect their freedom without being bound to such archaic structures as the church. After all, this is how it happened historically – in our country, people had to swear before the church that they would be together until the end of their lives. But everything is developing.”
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
