Poland’s top administrative court ruled last month that authorities must recognise same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere in the European Union by entering them into the country’s civil registry, in a landmark decision for LGBTQ rights.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said on Wednesday that Poland must comply with the ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) ordering the head of Warsaw’s Civil Registry Office to enter into the civil status register the foreign marriage certificate of two Polish men.
But he said the issue cannot be solved by a simple administrative change. “It is not the case that it is enough to change one regulation and a form in a computer program,” Kierwiński said.
He said the ruling concerns one specific couple, but added that the government is also working on wider solutions connected to a judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union that affects same-sex marriages concluded abroad more generally.
He said such steps would require changes to Polish law and could prove difficult because President Karol Nawrocki has already signaled that he would veto such legislation.
The case centers on two Polish men who legally married in Berlin in 2018 and later moved to Poland. They applied to have their German marriage certificate transcribed into the Polish civil status register so they would be treated in Poland as spouses.
Authorities refused, arguing that Polish law does not allow same-sex marriage. On March 20, the Supreme Administrative Court overturned those earlier refusals and ordered the Warsaw civil registry office to register the marriage within 30 days.
Government officials say the practical problem is wider than this one case.
Maciej Berek, the minister overseeing implementation of government policy, said recently that a change to a ministerial regulation alone could create legal uncertainty over the status and rights attached to such documents because the regulation cannot ignore the broader statutory framework.
Officials from the Ministry of Digital Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior and Administration have said they are working on changes to document templates used in civil status registration.
The proposed amendment would replace the terms "man" and "woman" on marriage certificate forms with "first spouse" and "second spouse," making it possible to register same-sex marriages concluded abroad.
The case gained broader importance after Poland's Supreme Administrative Court sent questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2023.
In November 2025, the EU court ruled that a member state must recognize a same-sex marriage lawfully concluded in another EU country, even if that state does not provide for such marriages in its own domestic law.
The Polish case then returned to the Supreme Administrative Court, leading to the March ruling.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP