Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe ruled on Tuesday that the law denying unwed fathers custody rights to their children without the mother’s permission is unconstitutional, opening the way for automatic dual custody.
The exclusion of an unmarried father from joint custody is a disproportionate violation of his rights as a parent, the court said, ruling in favour of a North Rhine-Westphalian father’s appeal to gain custody of his son, born in 1998.
The boy, who lives with his mother, sees his father regularly, but the mother has denied him the right to joint custody. A court on Bad Oeynhausen, and another in Hamm both rejected his case, leading him to take it to the highest court in the country.
Meanwhile the European Court of Human Rights had also ruled in December 2009 that the German law – codified by the Karlsruhe court in 2003 to avoid lengthy legal custody battles – discriminated against single fathers.
In anticipation of the ruling, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said just last week that she had directed officials to draft a new custody law that provides automatic equal rights for fathers.
“Children should have the right that their fathers take on responsibility and make joint-decisions over important things in their lives,” Stephan Thomae, family rights expert from Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger’s Free Democratic Party told dailyPassauer Neue Presse at the time.
He said unmarried parents would share custody unless the mother – or presumably, the father – convinces a court to grant her sole custody over the child.
