Turkish court rules that children can be given maiden name of divorced mother

Oya Armutçu – ANKARA

Turkey’s Court of Cassation ruled on April 9 that divorced women who have custody rights over their children can legally request for them to be given their maiden name.

The ruling, which came in a case of a mother who lodged an appeal, could lead other courts to approve such requests from divorced women under the binding “precedent” decisions of the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation.

Such a decision was initially made by the Constitutional Court in 2015.

A divorced woman, who had the custody of her child, asked a court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır for her child to be given her own family name, which was initially rejected.

The woman then lodged a personal application to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that a child can use the divorced mother’s maiden name on the grounds that “men and woman are not any different from a legal perspective, so their rights and obligations are also equal.”

The decision stated that in some examples a father with custody rights has been able to choose his children’s family name while a mother with custody rights has not been able to do so. It ruled that this implies gender-based discrimination, which violates the 10th and 41st articles of the constitution.