Yes / This paper considers the definitions of spouse, civil partner and partner in European Union free movement of persons law in order to question the EU’s heterocentric approach to defining ‘family’ in this context. It argues that the terms ‘spouse’ should include same sex married partners to ensure there is no discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. It further highlights the problems created by basing free movement rights of civil partners on host state recognition of such partnerships. This approach allows Member States to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation and is therefore not compatible with EU equality law in others areas. The position of unmarried or unregistered partners is also considered. In particular the paper examines the requirement of a duly attested durable relationship and its impact on same-sex partners wishing to move from one Member State to another. The paper argues that it is time to reconsider the law in this area and bring it in line with the EU’s commitment to eliminate discrimination on several grounds including sexual orientation.

Civil Partnership is significant because its availability indicates that social attitudes about sexual minorities have altered dramatically over the past two decades (Weeks 2007: 3, Shipman and Smart 2007). At one time, social attitudes labelled people’s attractions to persons of the same sex as ‘abnormal’, and resulting same-sex relationships were expected to be invisible and conducted in private (Plummer 1975, Weeks 1977, Rich 1980). These expectations have changed, to such an extent, that it is now rather common to view same-sex and opposite-sex relationships as the ‘same’ and equally worthy of recognition and rights (Weeks 2007, Heaphy et al. 2013).This project explored what (if any) impact inhabiting this contemporary socio-cultural and historical climate is having on the everyday lives of sexual minorities. Finch’s (2007) concept of ‘display’ was employed as a conceptual lens to explore the ‘narratives’ that 42 civil partners aged 30 to 65 told about displaying their non-heterosexual orientation and same-sex relationship in encounters with others. I argued that if these more liberal attitudes had impacted on their lives it should be discernible from the personal stories they told about the interactions they had with one of six different audiences (e.g. self, couple, family, friends, acquaintances and strangers).Three main findings and arguments were formed from my analysis of these civil partners’ narratives. First, despite the remarkable changes in social attitudes towards sexual minorities, the stories my interviewees told illustrated that there is a generational difference in terms of the impact that these more liberal attitudes have been able to have on the ways that they display their non-heterosexual orientation and relationship. Essentially, these social attitudes have noticeably influenced the lives that younger generations are able to lead. Second, my use of ‘display’ as a conceptual lens to examine interviewees’ narratives has illuminated how the stigmatizing spotlight attached to non-heterosexual orientation and same-sex relationships has diminished over time. This was signalled by how narrators approached the display of their non-heterosexual orientation and their same-sex relationship. Third, ‘display’ as a conceptual lens has been significant for illuminating the challenges and negotiations involved in displaying a civil partnership and, I argued, is able to offer a more nuanced understanding of the continuing salience of the heterosexual assumption in an ‘era of equality’.

L’union juridique formée par deux personnes qui vivent en couple se fonde sur l’existence d’une communauté de vie, dont le droit français consacre trois modes d’organisation : le mariage, le pacte civil de solidarité et le concubinage. L’intensité de cette communauté varie selon le mode de conjugalité et chacun constitue, par conséquent, une inégale source de solidarité. Ce soutien, à la fois matériel et moral, ne résiste pas à la dissolution de l’union qui constitue dès lors, dans certains cas, la source d’un préjudice ou d’un état de besoin.Dans le but de les compenser, le droit met en œuvre une indemnisation, lors de la rupture. Ce transfert de valeurs prend la forme de dommages-intérêts, d’une prestation compensatoire et d’une indemnité in rem verso. Toutefois, après avoir assisté au recul de la faute, ainsi qu’à l’avènement d’une responsabilité objective, c’est tout le système de la compensation-indemnisation qui décline et ne semble plus adapté à l’union telle qu’on la conçoit, libéralisée dans sa dissolution et émancipatrice des individus. Ce déclin incite à rechercher l’existence d’une autre méthode de compensation.L’extinction du lien conjugal dissout la communauté de vie, sans que les effets déjà produits ne soient remis en cause. Or, tout au long de la vie commune, l’union provoque la mutualisation d’un certain nombre de richesses, qu’il convient de partager. Cette redistribution, réalisée par l’intermédiaire d’une communauté, d’une indivision ou d’une société a pour effet de compenser l’éventuelle disparité patrimoniale. Lorsque cette compensation est insuffisante ou ne permet pas à l’un des conjoints de subvenir à ses besoins, c’est une redistribution minimale que le droit organise, en tirant profit des biens présents dans le patrimoine de l’un, pour attribuer des droits utiles à l’autre, notamment sur l’immeuble affecté au logement. Ces deux formes de distribution constituent les manifestations d’un nouveau modèle : la compensation-distribution. / The legal union formed by two persons living as a couple is based on the existence of a joint living for which French Law sanctions three modes of organization: marriage, civil partnership and cohabitation. The intensity of this community depends on the nature of conjugality. As a consequence, each of the presented modes of organization consists of an uneven source of solidarity. Solidarity is both material and moral, and does not survive the dissolution of the union, which therefore denotes, in some cases, a source of damage or a state of necessity. In order to compensate this situation, French Law provides for compensation when couples break up. This transfer of value takes the form of damages, of a spousal support or of an in rem verso compensation. However, as a consequence of the decline of fault and the accession of an objective liability, the whole compensation system is deteriorating and no more seems suitable for the union the way it is understood, i.e. liberal in its break up and liberated from individuals. This decline encourages us to look for the existence of other compensation methods. The termination of the marital bond dissolves the joint living without prejudice to the effects already produced. Yet, throughout the shared life, the union causes a certain mutual wealth that needs to be divided. This redistribution, made trough a community, a joint ownership or a company, ends up compensating the possible disparity in property. When the compensation is insufficient or cannot permit one of the spouses to support themselves, the Law organizes a minimal redistribution, taking into account the present assets of a spouse in order to grant a useful right to the other, especially concerning accommodation. Those two forms of distribution represent the expression of a new model: the distributive compensation.

This thesis is looking at the issue of registered partnerships from the perspective of ethics and law. The main objective of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive perspective on registered partnership problematic and on other current issues related to this topic. The work is divided into two parts. The theoretical part deals with the history of homosexuality from ancient Greece to modern times, furthermore it focuses on the actual registered partnership and the regularization process of the necessary law in the Czech Republic. It covers a topic of religion perspective on homosexuality, the issue of child adoptions by homosexual couples and not least the blood donation problematic. The practical part deals with the social investigational survey, its processing and reporting the results. The aim of the social survey was to obtain a view on the homosexual minority from the society and get their opinions about the questions analyzed in the theoretical part. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Le droit des règlements pécuniaires entre époux consécutifs au divorce a pendant longtemps été fondé sur l’idée de sanctionner le conjoint responsable de la rupture que ce soit en France, au Canada ou dans la province canadienne de Québec. Bien que de traditions juridiques différentes, les droits français et canadien reconnaissaient ainsi un rôle central à la faute dans leur droit du divorce. Face à l’évolution concomitante des sociétés française et canadienne vers un individualisme plus marqué et une volonté croissante de pacifier les conflits, ces droits ont dû tendre vers une plus grande objectivation du divorce et de ces conséquences. Parallèlement à un mouvement de quasi-disparition de la faute, de nouvelles institutions sont apparues dans les droits étudiés, institutions fondées sur des idées de compensation, d’équité mais aussi de solidarité avec la survie ou l’apparition d’obligations alimentaires. Aujourd’hui, les droits étudiés sont marqués par une diversité d’institutions avec pour certaines des fondements multiples et des intitulés qui, malgré la différence de tradition juridique, peuvent se répondre comme, par exemple, la pension alimentaire non compensatoire canadienne qui n’est pas sans rappeler la prestation compensatoire que nous qualifions d’alimentaire française. Cette diversité amène alors à s’interroger sur la nécessité de repenser et de rationaliser les institutions existantes pour les rendre tout à la fois plus compréhensibles mais aussi plus accessibles par les futurs ex-époux. Cette simplification doit en effet s’accompagner d’une plus grande liberté contractuelle permettant aux conjoints divorcés de se réapproprier leur séparation avec l’aide d’un avocat, d’un médiateur ou encore du juge. Le divorce pacifié, se pose alors la question de la pacification de la rupture des autres couples que sont les unions libres ou encore les PACS et union civile. Ces unions hors mariage se développant, il est nécessaire aujourd’hui de prendre en considération les conséquences de leur dissolution voire d’envisager un droit commun des règlements pécuniaires consécutifs à toute séparation. / Historically post-divorce laws between spouses was based in France, Canada and Quebec on penalizing the responsible party of the separation. Although from different law traditions, Canadian and French law recognized an important place to the fault in their divorce laws. However, the tendency of the French and Canadian societies to be more individual and to pacify conflicts, divorce law had to change to become more objectivized. The movement of removing the fault in divorce permitted the creation of new institutions based on compensation, equity and solidarity which is symbolized by spousal support and alimony. The studied laws are characterized by diverse institutions, are founded on different grounds. These institutions inspired by different law traditions are thus very similar such as the Canadian on compensatory spousal support and the French compensatory obligation that we call "alimony compensatory obligation". This diversity impose us to think about the possibility of a renewal and rationalization of the existent institutions in order to be simplified and comprehensible for the future divorce spouses. A greater freedom of contract should also ensure the appropriation of the divorce's consequences by the divorced spouse with help of lawyers, mediators and judges. Once the divorce humanized, the question of the pacification of the dissolution/ ruptures of other types of union such as common law marriage or civil partnership. The increasing number of those new couples, it is becoming a necessity to take in consideration the consequences of their dissolution and draw a new common law for their dissolution.

Le contexte de la rupture du couple, qu’il soit marié, uni par un pacte civil de solidarité, fiancé ou en concubinage, est un moment propice à la lésion des intérêts de ses membres. La question de la réparation des préjudices subis surgit alors, et la tentation est grande d’en imputer la responsabilité à l’autre membre du couple, surtout s’il est à l’origine de la rupture. Le droit commun de la responsabilité civile délictuelle, fondé sur l’article 1382 du Code civil, est une voie empruntable par chacun pour obtenir réparation ; demeurait la question de son adaptation à la matière. L’analyse des décisions qui le mettent en application à un cas de rupture de couple révèle une tendance nette, celle de l’utilisation à titre de sanction d’un mécanisme en principe réparateur. Cette résistance jurisprudentielle au mouvement d’objectivation et à la neutralité croissante du législateur dans l’organisation des rapports de couple se devait d’être précisée et expliquée. La présente étude vérifie, d’abord, la réalité du phénomène : l’article 1382 du Code civil est utilisé comme peine privée, ce qui met en avant la fonction répressive de la responsabilité civile. Elle s’attache ensuite à déterminer les valeurs que le juge cherche à protéger par la mise en œuvre de cette sanction. Au-delà de la diversité des comportements sanctionnés, c’est le travail d’équilibre réalisé par le juge entre droit à réparation et liberté de rupture que la thèse vise à souligner / The context of a couple’s break-up, whether they are married, in a civil partnership, engaged or cohabiting, is conducive to prejudice the respective interests of either person in the couple. As the issue of compensation for damages emerges, the temptation is to blame the other person, especially when this one can be regarded as the cause of the break-up. An action can be brought on the basis of tort liability in the section 1382 of the French civil Code. The question of its implementation was still open. A detailed analysis of the case-law shows that this legal basis, which is supposed to award compensation, is actually used as a punishment. This resistance to the development of objectification and to the increasing legal neutrality in the organization of the couple’s relationships had to be clarified and explained. The first objective of the study was to grasp the reality of the phenomenon : tort liability is used as a “private penalty”, which highlights its repressive function. The second purpose was to determine the values that judges are trying to protect through this particular way of application of the law. Beyond the diversity of sanctioned behaviours, the thesis aims at bringing out the role of judges in finding a right way between the right to compensation and the freedom to break-up.