ABOVE: Susel Paredes (L) and Gracia Aljovín in 2019. (Photo courtesy of Latina.pe)
Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes and her wife, Gracia Aljovín, have told the Washington Blade that they will sue Peru over its refusal to recognize their 2016 marriage in Miami.
Paredes and Aljovín made the decision after the Peruvian Constitutional Court denied their request to register their marriage. The couple had previously filed a request with the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (RENIEC), which was also denied.
Peru’s highest court by a 4-2 margin rejected the women’s petition, noting the “essential elements” of marriage in the country are “a voluntary union … to be celebrated between a man and a woman,” and as a consequence “a right acquired abroad that collides with this notion cannot be recognized in Peru.”
The majority of the judges who ruled against Paredes and Aljovín also noted they cannot reproduce.
Some organizations described the ruling as anti-LGBTQ because it also establishes that “homosexual unions are not marriages, so it is not discriminatory not to recognize them as such” and that the court cannot “introduce equal marriage through the window because this is the work of the legislator.” At the same time, the court said that if Congress wants to introduce same-sex marriage in Peru, it must do so through a constitutional reform.
Paredes, along with regretting the decision, acknowledged to the Blade that “it was bad news that I was already expecting.”
“We knew this was going to happen because I am not only an activist and congresswoman, I am a lawyer, so I follow the criteria. One can predict what is going to happen with a sentence when there are predictable judges. These judges are predictable,” she said from her congressional office in Lima, the Peruvian capital, during a video call. “The truth is that it is outrageous because I pay my taxes, I have lived with my partner for years, we have a family, so how is it possible that our family is denied its existence, because we exist.”
The congresswoman said that “in the first instance we are going to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The commission must evaluate if it qualifies and if it qualifies in our favor, we go to the court and in the court we vote and I am sure we will win.”
Peru is one of the few countries in Latin America that does not have any laws in favor of LGBTQ people. A marriage equality bill that former Congressman Alberto de Belaunde, who is gay, introduced has been dormant in a congressional committee for years.
Paredes said the right wing will “undoubtedly use” the ruling “and its foundations, but its foundations are very fragile.”
De Belaunde has a similar opinion.
“Congress will use this ruling as an excuse not to legislate on this issue. If they feel a lot of media pressure, they will look for a sort of patrimonial civil union, where the existence of a family is not recognized, but only a shared patrimony,” said the former congressman. “An absolutely insufficient figure, which will not be accepted by the LGBT+ communities because it is almost an insult to our claims to be recognized as full citizens.”
For him “the ruling not only seeks to deny the recognition of rights, it seeks to do harm.”
“Contrary to what the Constitutional Court has previously said, it seeks to discredit the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by pointing out that its advisory opinions should not be complied with,” he said. “It is a mediocre ruling — it ignores basic concepts of private international law, but it is no less harmful for that.”
Both agreed that Congress has little political will to process the bill.
“Laws have been passed that have been presented much later than the date when the marriage law was presented, which was in October of last year,” Paredes emphasized to the Blade. “There is a political will to prevent if you want it to be discussed.”
Pía Bravo, executive director of Presentes, a Peruvian LGBTQ rights advocacy group, told the Blade that they were hopeful that the ruling could have enshrined the first legal recognition for LGBTQ people in the country.
“The Constitutional Court was an opportunity we missed,” Bravo lamented. “It is a pretty big setback and it is a setback that unfortunately we are going to have to continue, to continue facing and seeing what other paths, what other ways we can find so that this so necessary right is finally approved.”
