Conferece: Family Law as a Right to Freedom: gay marriage in Spain

Prof. Encarna Roca, Magistrate of the Spanish Constitutional Court, will be talking on ‘Family Law as a Right to Freedom: The Protection of Gay Marriage in Spain’. The talk will be held at the Old Law Library, Magdalen College, from 17:30 to 18:30. After the lecture there will be a Q&A session. You can find more information about the event and the venue on our website.

THE SPEAKER: Prof. Encarna Roca is Magistrate of the Spanish Constitutional Court since 2012. Previously she was Magistrate of the Spanish Supreme Court (2005-2012). In 2011 she became the first woman to be appointed member of the Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación (Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation). In 1978 she became the first woman Full Professor of Civil Law in Spain. She has researched extensively in the field of fundamental rights and their application in Private Law and in particular in Catalan Civil Law.

THE EVENT: Spain has been a pioneering country in granting legal protection to new forms of family relationships. For example, in 2005, it became one of the first countries to legalise same-sex marriage. However, the family as a social group has experienced a radical change in Spain, especially after the end of a 40-year dictatorship and the enactment of the Constitution in 1978. These transformations raise important questions: Can the law promote social transformations, or do social transformations change and the law just follows suit? If autonomy is the preferred system to regulate family circumstances in the present context, how can the law protect that autonomy? On this basis, Prof. Roca will explore how legal systems may protect two paramount examples of new family orders: same-sex marriage and partners who do not want to marry.