## Facts

- A citizen filed an abstract constitutional challenge to a civil-code provision governing the competent judge for celebrating a civil marriage.
- The challenged rule required that a civil marriage be celebrated before the municipal (or promiscuous municipal) judge of the woman’s domicile, with two sworn competent witnesses.
- The challenger argued the rule used sex as the operative jurisdictional criterion by tying competence exclusively to the woman’s domicile and therefore violated constitutional equality and non-discrimination guarantees.
- The case required the court to reconcile legislative authority to regulate marriage formalities with constitutional limits on sex-based classifications.

## Issues

1. Whether the legislature may define the competent official for civil marriage using domicile-based criteria consistent with constitutional regulation of civil status and marriage formalities.
2. Whether assigning competence solely by reference to the woman’s domicile constitutes impermissible sex discrimination under constitutional equality provisions.
3. If only part of the provision is unconstitutional, whether the proper remedy is severance of the discriminatory words and how the remaining rule should operate.

## Decision

- The court upheld the legislature’s general authority to regulate the form of marriage and designate a competent official, including by using domicile as a neutral criterion.
- The court held unconstitutional and severed only the words that fixed competence by reference to the woman (“de la mujer”), as an unjustified sex-based classification.
- The remainder of the provision was upheld, including the requirement of celebration before the relevant municipal judge and the presence and authorization of two sworn competent witnesses.
- After severance, the competent judge is determined by the domicile of either prospective spouse, at their election (concurrent choice), consistent with equality and procedural competence rules.

## Legal Principles

- Legislative discretion to regulate marriage formalities and allocate competence is broad but constrained by constitutional principles, including equality and non-discrimination.
- Domicile may be used as a reasonable, constitutionally neutral basis for allocating competence; the constitutional defect arises when domicile selection is tied to a suspect classification.
- Sex is a suspect classification; rules that differentiate on the basis of sex require heightened justification and are invalid absent a sufficiently weighty, constitutionally acceptable reason.
- Courts may cure a constitutional defect through partial invalidation (severance) of discriminatory language while preserving the operative remainder and construing it to conform to constitutional requirements.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated only the sex-based phrase that anchored civil-marriage competence to the woman’s domicile, preserved the rest of the marriage-formality rule, and required a sex-neutral application allowing celebration before the judge of either spouse’s domicile under constitutional equality guarantees.


González Bernal v. Art. 126, Civ. Code, C-112/00 (Colom. Const. Ct. 2000)