Euro court upholds Turk ruling

Agence France Presse

"The court considered it not unreasonable for protection to be afforded only to civil marriages in Turkey," said a statement from the court in Strasbourg.

In 2003, Şerife Yığıt asked a Turkish court to have her marriage to Ömer Koç, who died in 2002, recognized and their daughter Emine entered into the public registry.

The district court recognized Emine as Koç's daughter, but rejected Yığıt's request regarding her 1976 marriage in a religious ceremony to her deceased husband.

No violation

Judges at the European court ruled by four votes to three that, under the European Convention on Human Rights, Yığıt's "right to respect for private and family life" had not been violated by the Turkish court's decision. Yığıt had appealed unsuccessfully in Turkey to have Koç's pension and health insurance benefits transferred to both her and her daughter. The benefits were granted to Emine -- whose five siblings from the same marriage had been officially recognized as Koç's children -- but not to her mother.

The European court acknowledged that many countries recognize stable forms of cohabitation, but said that "under Turkish law a religious marriage ceremony performed by an imam did not give rise to any commitments toward third parties or the state."