Äktenskap för par med samma kön Vigselfrågor - Regeringen

SOU 2007:17 Summary
responsible for the entire civil marriage procedure. Among other
things, the verification that wedding ceremonies have been conducted
properly would be made easier and the wedding ceremony
would be more closely linked to population registration. However,
reasons against such a system are the fact that the Tax Agency
only has a limited number of locations in Sweden and that the
availability of opportunities for wedding ceremonies would therefore
reduce. In any event, the Tax Agency does not have the capacity
with its existing manpower resources to satisfy the requirement
for civil wedding ceremony officials throughout Sweden. It may
also be fundamentally unsatisfactory that the wedding ceremony
authority itself should verify that the wedding ceremony has been
conducted according to the proper procedure. A survey conducted
by Statistics Sweden into the public’s opinion on the formalities for
entering into marriage also indicated that there is no great interest
in officers at the Tax Office being allowed to perform wedding
ceremonies and that geographical proximity is perceived to be
important. The task of conducting wedding ceremonies should
therefore not be dealt with by the Tax Agency.
However, in my opinion, there is no impediment to the wedding
ceremony task being transferred to the municipalities. In that
event, this would involve a special function regulated by law and
which can be funded through the municipalities imposing charges
for conducting wedding ceremonies. The need regarding locations
for wedding ceremonies would therefore be satisfied throughout
Sweden and the costs to central government for arranging weddings
would reduce. However, it may be questioned whether there are
sufficient reasons for implementing such a reform. Such a system
would basically entail a major change in comparison with the
current system that has applied for many years. Nor, as far as I
have established in the course of my investigation work, does the
current system involve any manifest inconvenience. I have therefore
chosen not to submit any proposed amendment in this respect.
I consequently propose that all civil marriage ceremonies should
continue to be conducted by those who have been appointed by
the County Administrative Boards. It ought to be possible to
compensate for the loss of resources that would result owing to the
courts being released from the task of performing wedding
ceremonies by the County Administrative Boards appointing more
wedding ceremony officials when necessary.
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