• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Cuba

Cuba: Family Code Will Define the Concept of Marriage

  • An activist shows a sticker that reads

    An activist shows a sticker that reads "All rights for all the families - Constitutional Reform - Cuba 2018", in Havana, Cuba, Oct. 9, 2018. | Photo: Reuters

Published 19 December 2018
Opinion

The new Cuban Constitution will not define the subjects that make up the marriage, a task that will be carried out through a new, progressive family code.

Cuba's new Constitution will not define which subjects constitute a marriage since that discussion falls outside its legal scope, the Secretary of the Council of State, Homero Acosta said, Tuesday.

RELATED:
Cuba: Last Day of National Consultation on Draft Constitution

Before the National Assembly of Popular Power, Acosta explained that the new project, which must be submitted to the approval of the deputies in the coming days, will not specify how marriage is constituted.

The Family Code, which will be submitted to a referendum within two years, will define how the marriage will be constituted, who will be the subjects, what the obligations will be, and what the requirements will be.

"The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba will not define the concept of marriage. To make such a decision -assured in AsambleaCuba Homero Acosta, secretary of the Council of State- took into account the amount and diversity of opinions that generated the proposal of Art.68"

Thus, the Family Code will replace article 68, which proposed to define the institution of marriage as the union between two people.

"The variation in the new proposal lies in the substitution of 'people' for 'spouses', a question that maintains the possibility that all people can access the marriage institution," Mariela Castro, Director of the National Center for Sex Education, explained and called for a "YES to the Constitution and then close ranks to achieve a Family Code as advanced as the new constitutional text."

Through a process of popular consultation carried out between August and November, more than 176,000 opinions favored maintaining what is currently established in the Cuban Constitution, in which the concept of marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman.

After the analysis carried out by the commission drafting the constitutional project, Article 82 now defines marriage "as a social and legal institution. It is one of the ways of organizing the family. It is based on the free consent and equality of rights, obligations, and legal capacity of the spouses. The law determines the way it is constituted and its effects."

The Cuban National Assembly will have to decide Friday on the new project. If new legal text receives parliamentary approval, the State Council will convene a constitutional referendum.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.