MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia records its first same-sex civil marriage after a court ruling

The couple, Fabiana Banzer and Scarlett Rocha, formally applied for a civil marriage on October 12, 2022

Bolivia has recorded its first civil marriage between two people of the same sex, held on Friday, August 7, in Santa Cruz, the country's most populous city, following a legal process that lasted three years and ten months.

The couple, Fabiana Banzer and Scarlett Rocha, formally applied for a civil marriage on October 12, 2022. The non-governmental organization IGUAL Bolivia, which provided legal support, said the union was completed after a lengthy administrative process and two constitutional injunctions filed by its team, until the couple obtained recognition and legal protection from the Bolivian state.

“Scar and I have been together for more than 4 years. It makes me very happy to announce to our family and friends that after a legal fight of 3 years and 10 months we have finally been able to access civil marriage as two women,” Banzer wrote on social media.

The decision does not alter Bolivia's legal framework. Article 63 of the constitution states that marriage is constituted between a woman and a man through legal bonds, and the Banzer-Rocha union was authorized through the courts in an individual case rather than by legislative reform. Bolivia therefore remains among the South American countries that do not recognize same-sex marriage in law, alongside Peru, Paraguay and Venezuela.

The immediate precedent dates to December 2020, when David Aruquipa and Guido Montaño secured registration of the country's first free union between two people of the same sex, following a ruling by the Second Constitutional Chamber of the La Paz departmental court that was later upheld by the Plurinational Constitutional Court. The Civil Registry Service has since recorded dozens of such unions.

Aruquipa said on Sunday that he and Montaño were marking the Banzer-Rocha marriage as a new and significant milestone in the advance of rights for same-sex couples in Bolivia, and as a development that widens the boundaries of equality. He argued the case should be read as part of a sequence: “Rather than speaking of a beginning, we should speak of a historical continuity: from the first recognized union to the first civil marriage.”

The transfeminist collective La Pesada Subversiva said the process involved a harsh legal battle against Bolivian institutions, marked by what it described as discrimination and mistreatment by authorities and public officials. The group noted that the application drew on advisory opinion 24/17, issued in 2017 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on gender identity and equality for same-sex couples.

The collective also argued that the free union, recognized since 2020, does not carry the same social recognition and standing as marriage. Bolivian authorities have not issued public statements on the case.