The Turkish Constitutional Court passed a verdict on Friday granting Turkish married women the right to keep their maiden name after marriage. Likewise, the court annulled the law requiring a married woman to take her husband's last name after marriage or hyphenate it with her maiden name, according to Official Gazette.
According to the 8th Family Court of Istanbul, the provision in Article No. 187 of the Turkish Civil Code states, "A married woman being unable to use her maiden name is unconstitutional as it is against Article 10 of the Constitution, referring to the inequality between men and women."
Many individual applications have been made to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Constitutional Court, claiming that "not allowing the woman to use her pre-marriage surname after marriage leads to a violation of rights." In this context, the ECtHR decided that not allowing a woman to use her maiden name alone violated Article 14 of the convention within the meaning of Article 8 of the convention.
The Constitutional Court stated that the provisions of international conventions should be used to stipulate that men and women have equal rights in terms of surnames after marriage and pointed out that the domestic law regulations that stipulate that the married woman must use her husband's surname contain different provisions on the same subject.
In this respect, implementing Article 187 of Law No. 4721 for the applicants was incompatible with the principle of legality and led to a violation.
Following the Constitutional Court's findings, the Supreme Court of Appeals developed critical jurisprudence in cases related to women's surnames and accepted that the provisions of international conventions should be applied according to the fifth paragraph of Article 90 of the Constitution.
Having a surname, often a crucial part of a woman's identity, is an obligation and a right under Article 20 of the Constitution. The ECtHR accepted that the abovementioned right falls within the scope of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. With the constitutional amendments made during the process, the principle of equality before the law was strongly emphasized and it was stressed that it should be fully ensured.
The country places great emphasis on women's rights. It continues to work toward and develop guarantees through laws and administrative practices to ensure gender equality.
