Legal case summary

On October 30, 2018, K.A. submitted an application to the Kentron and Nork-Marash Department of the RA Ministry of Justice to make corrections to the birth certificate.

In the submitted application, K.A. requested to make a correction to the birth certificate No. 870, namely to correct the female entry in the gender column with a male entry.

The Kentron and Nork-Marash Department of the RA Ministry of Justice rejected the application by its conclusion of December 17, 2018.

In this case, the Kentron and Nork-Marash Department of the RA Ministry of Justice, rejecting K.A.’s application, referred to the Resolution of the RA Minister of Justice dated May 14, 2007 to the order, which stipulates that the Civil Registry Office shall refuse to make changes, additions and corrections to the registration of a civil status act if the submitted documents are incomplete, do not comply with the requirements of the legislation of the Republic of Armenia, or the request to make changes, additions and corrections is not substantiated, or there are inconsistencies in the information in the documents.

K.A. applied to the Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia, demanding to invalidate the administrative act adopted by the Kentron and Nork-Marash departments of the Civil Registry Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and to oblige to adopt a favorable administrative act.

K.A.'s claim was rejected by the Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia, after which K.A. applied to the Administrative Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia.

That is, if a person wants to make a change in the entry in the civil status act (change of gender entry), he must:

Perform a sex change.

Submit a document on sex change issued by a medical organization in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Republic of Armenia.

In the case under consideration, in order for K.A. to be able to correct the female in the gender column with a male note, he had to perform the listed actions, namely: perform a sex change and submit a document on sex change issued by a medical organization in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Republic of Armenia.

The European Court of Human Rights, in its judgment in the case of Garson and Nicot v. France (ECHR 121 (2017) 06.04.2017)[i], addressed the aforementioned issues, in particular, noting that the recognition of a transgender person’s gender identity after undergoing medical interventions that they did not want to undergo amounted to a denial of the full protection of their right to respect for their private life.

At the same time, it should be noted that Armenia also lacks legal regulations that would define the norms and regulations for the provision of a certificate of gender reassignment by a medical organization.

On October 4, 2021, the RA Administrative Court of Appeal rejected K.A.’s appeal, and on November 4, 2021, the decision of the RA Administrative Court of Appeal was appealed to the RA Court of Cassation.

[i] https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/spa#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-172913%22]}