The plaintiff, a female Venezuelan citizen married to a female Venezuelan citizen, got married in Argentina, where LGBT marriage rights are fully granted to homosexual couples. In the following years, they tried to validate their marriage in Venezuela through a judicial homologation process. Such homologation was denied on the basis that the marriage regulations in Argentina did not comply with the provisions of Article 44 of the Venezuelan Civil Code, which regulates marriage rights in Venezuela and provides that “marriage cannot be entered into except between one single man and one single woman.” Thereafter, the couple conceived a child through the assisted reproduction method in Argentina, who was born and presented for registration as their son in Argentina. Immediately after the baby was born, the couple moved back to Venezuela, where they tried to present the newborn as their son to the Venezuelan competent authorities, requiring that the baby carried the surnames of both mothers. The registration was denied. The couple introduced a complaint before the competent court and the judge decided the registration of the boy was inadmissible. The plaintiff appealed this decision until it reached the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (“TSJ”), Venezuelan’s highest judicial body, which decided to annul the decision of the lower court. The TSJ overruled the lower court’s decision on the basis that the decision violated the plaintiff’s right to present the child as an LGBTIQ couple’s child. Likewise, the TSJ stated that this action violated the child’s constitutional right to have an identity. The TSJ final decision was to allow the registration of the child with both mothers’ surnames.
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