Partnerattiecību tiesiskā regulējuma ieviešanas iespējas

Abstract

There are partners in every country who have chosen a long-term cohabitation oppose to a marriage, although they have no legal or any other barriers to get married. It is up to each country to decide whether to recognise and regulate such relationships or not. The Republic of Latvia is facing a similar choice. Latvia, like other countries, is trying to formulate the necessity and proportionality of such a regulation, as well as its topicality. In Latvia, law scientists, students, lawyers and researchers have conducted a number of studies on civil partnerships to determine the need. At the centre of the Latvian family policy is a traditional family model based on marriage, assuming that this ideal family model is the only desired one. Other forms of family, where a child is formally raised by one of the parents, are viewed as a traditional family in a crisis situation, rather than a respectable form of the family (Putniņa, Zīverte, 2008). The Maintenance Guarantee Fund emphasizes the increasing number of applications for material assistance from parents of children born outside the marriage or in civil partnerships, also of children left without paternity, which leads to a large number of these ‘other’ families being left outside the family boundaries set by the state aid policy. In the author’s opinion, such situation is unacceptable in a democratic country, and it is a gross violation of children’s rights to material aid, which can have a significant impact on the future development of children.