Facts
Facts
- Susanna Maria Simone Burghartz, a German national, and Albert Johann Schnyder, a citizen of Binningen and Horw, married in Germany in 1984. According to German law, they determined the wife's name as the family name.
- In Switzerland, the husband's name was registered as the family name.
- In 1988, the spouses applied to be allowed to use the name Burghartz as the family name and to allow the husband to place his birth name in front.
- The Department of Justice of the Canton of Basel-Stadt rejected the request.
Considerations
Legal Considerations
- The appeal against the refusal to change the name is admissible under Art. 44 lit. a OG, even if it is a request under Art. 30 para. 2 ZGB.
- Art. 30 para. 2 ZGB, which allows for an easier name change upon marriage, does not apply retroactively to marriages that were already concluded before the revised marriage law came into force.
- However, in the case of relatively young but still married under the old law couples who are trying to align the name…