The foreign birth certificate’s control by the dgrn and the imperative application of the paternity presumption of the mother’s husband

Abstract

The mention of the datum of the father collected in a foreign registry and its access to the birth registration in the Spanish Civil Registry has been raising the issue of the contradictory double filiation. This question derives from the paternity presumption of the mother’s husband when the spouses are already de facto separated by the time the child is born. The refusal of the paternity inscription when included in a foreign act, originates an abundant doctrine of the DGRN. This mainly affects the birth certificates of an important sector of naturalized Spaniards. It also hinders the right of choice and the attribution of the Spanish nationality to Spaniards’ descendants. This result is mainly due to the imperative application of the substantive rule of the marital paternity presumption led by the Spanish Registration authority regarding the filiation control in the foreign certificates. This study will serve, on one hand, to demonstrate the need to improve the paternity of the child born to a father different from the mother’s husband and, on the other hand, to offer solutions that mitigate the claudicate filiation situations arising from the circumstances exposed.