Résumé

Ce chapitre aborde diverses questions relatives à la loi sur l’état civil actuellement débattue en Pologne. Ces dernières concernent l’organisation de l’état civil en Pologne (politisation des officiers de letat civil et fragmentation organisationnelle), ainsi que des problèmes juridiques pratiques (par exemple, savoir s’il est permis de transcrire l’acte de naissance d’un enfant né à l’étranger indiquant deux parents de même sexe, ainsi que les questions liées à l’enregistrement du mariage par concordat).

Le chapitre aborde ensuite la numérisation de l’enregistrement de l’état civil en Pologne dans le cadre des réformes envisagées. L’analyse se place dans une perspective historique et s’accompagne d’une brève explication sur l’importance de l’enregistrement de l’état civil en Pologne.

INTRODUCTION

After the end of the Second World War, Poland introduced, in 1946, a secular and universal system for civil status registration, replacing the heterogeneous and predominantly denominational registration based on religious record books kept by the clergy of the respective denominations. The ensuing process of secularisation of family law was consistent with the separation of Church and State, making it mandatory for marriages under civil law to be officiated by a registrar of civil status, and to be subject to State law on civil status registration. Polish society's initial resistance to the secularisation of the celebration of marriage was fuelled by the Catholic Church's critical attitude towards the obligation of concluding marriages in a civil status office, as well as low awareness of the law. Both of these factors resulted in widespread negligence of the duty, and in serious omissions with respect to birth and death registration. As a result, in 1958, it was made illegal to conclude a church marriage before its civil registration, a rule that continued to apply until 1989. Under the socialist system, general law and the secular civil registration system gradually became established, in social practice, as governing the events giving rise to family relations. The 1955 decree was replaced with the Civil Status Records Act of 29 September 1986, which, despite multiple amendments, continued to apply until 2014.

The political and economic turning point marked by the transition to a democratic system of government and a market economy also had a strong impact on the regulation of family relations and, by extension, on the law on civil status records.