Äktenskap för par med samma kön Vigselfrågor - Regeringen

Summary SOU 2007:17
permit to conduct wedding ceremonies or would refrain from
applying for such a permit. This would in reality mean a transition
to mainly civil marriage ceremonies. As already mentioned, such a
transition would in its turn lead to a number of practical difficulties.
Nor should it, in my opinion, be a precondition for a religious
community’s wedding permit that it allows weddings both for
couples of different sexes and couples of the same sex. The reason
stated regarding the obligation on religious communities’ officials
to conduct wedding ceremonies is also relevant as regards an
obligation on religious communities to offer wedding ceremonies.
Consequently, no obligation to conduct wedding ceremonies should
be imposed on either wedding ceremony officials within a religious
denomination or on the communities.
Since the task of conducting wedding ceremonies constitutes the
exercise of official power, I propose that an express provision is included
in ÄktB providing that the officials of a religious community
are not liable to conduct wedding ceremonies.
Civil wedding ceremonies
The task of the courts to conduct wedding ceremonies. The assignment
included adopting a position on who in the future should be
entrusted with the task of conducting civil wedding ceremonies.
The Government has, among other things, raised the issue of
whether the power of legally qualified judges to conduct wedding
ceremonies should be abolished. In the past few years extensive
reform work has been underway to develop and modernise the
judicial service. The judicial operation should as far as possible only
be oriented towards the administration of justice. In my opinion,
the conduct of wedding ceremonies is basically an administrative
task without any adjudicative element, and is therefore generally
viewed as being an anomalous operation for the courts. Nor does
the task of a wedding ceremony official require the special competence
that legally qualified judges have. It is thus in line with the
general effort to streamline the courts and the business of the
courts that wedding ceremony matters are no longer dealt with at
court. The courts should consequently be released from the task of
conducting wedding ceremonies.
Who should conduct civil wedding ceremonies in the future? There
are certain advantages of a system in which the Tax Agency becomes
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