The Hungarian Constitutional Court (AB) ruled on Thursday that a 2022 law prohibiting name changes for transsexuals in official documents is not against the country’s fundamental law.
“The fact that the State registers the individual’s sex at birth instead of or in addition to his or her self-identified sex, which corresponds to his or her gender identity, as a result of sex reassignment treatment, may be justified for several reasons,” the AB said in its ruling.
“On the one hand, an individual’s right to healthcare may require the inclusion of his or her sex at birth in civil registers as an indispensable piece of information about the individual provided to the healthcare institution, which may, for example, be necessary for the provision of appropriate healthcare,” it said.
“On the other hand, the need for the criminal authorities to know the sex of the suspect or offender may also be at the forefront of State criminal policy, just as it may be relevant in sports law or even in labor law.”
The AB added that “therefore, in the view of the Constitutional Court, the restriction of the privacy of the individual by the recording of his or her sex as data in the civil registry procedure cannot be considered either unnecessary or disproportionate. The Constitutional Court, therefore, rejected the judicial initiative.”
The Background Society, an NGO promoting LGBT rights, which brought the matter to the AB in the first place, said that the court’s ruling was based on technicalities instead of fundamental rights, and it will, therefore, bring the issue to the European Court of Human Rights.
