## Facts

- A married woman and professional, María Eugenia Morales Aceña de Sierra, challenged Guatemalan Civil Code provisions that assigned spouses’ rights and duties based on sex.
- The challenged provisions made the husband the legal representative of the marital union, with limited exceptions allowing the wife to act.
- The husband was given primary authority to administer marital property, subject to narrow statutory exceptions.
- The wife was assigned a special “right and obligation” to care for minor children and the home.
- A married woman’s ability to work or practice a profession was conditioned on not prejudicing her maternal/domestic role.
- The husband could oppose the wife’s activities outside the home if he supported her and asserted justified reasons; disputes were resolved by a judge.
- The husband was assigned primary responsibility to represent children of the marriage and administer their property.
- Certain guardianship responsibilities could be excused for a woman “by virtue of her sex.”
- Guatemala’s Constitutional Court upheld the distinctions as constitutional, citing legal certainty in role allocation within marriage and protection of women.
- The petition was filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1995; after the Commission required identification of a concrete victim, Morales Aceña de Sierra was presented as the individual victim in 1997.
- The claim did not depend on a single enforcement act; it asserted that being subject to a discriminatory legal regime, as a married woman, impaired autonomy and equal status in private and family life.

## Issues

1. Whether Civil Code provisions that assign marital authority, property administration, and child representation primarily to husbands, and condition married women’s employment on domestic roles and spousal control, violate equality and non-discrimination duties under the American Convention.
2. Whether structuring family relations through sex-based stereotypes violates rights protecting family life and private life under the American Convention.
3. Whether maintaining such provisions breaches the duty to adopt domestic measures to give effect to Convention rights.

## Decision

- The Commission found Guatemala internationally responsible for violating the American Convention.
- It held that the challenged Civil Code provisions violated:
  - Article 24 (equality before the law),
  - Article 17 (protection of the family), and
  - Article 11 (protection of honor and dignity/private life),
  in relation to Article 1(1) (non-discrimination obligation) and Article 2 (duty to adopt domestic measures).
- The Commission treated the case as one of structural legal discrimination, concluding that sex-based assignment of spousal roles entrenched women’s subordinate status within marriage.
- It accepted Morales Aceña de Sierra as a victim based on her legal status under the discriminatory regime, even without proof of a discrete enforcement action.
- Recommendations included legislative reform to remove discriminatory provisions and provision of an adequate remedy and compensation to the victim.

## Legal Principles

- Laws that allocate rights, duties, or legal capacity within marriage based solely on sex constitute discrimination incompatible with equality before the law and the duty to ensure rights without discrimination.
- Family-protection guarantees require that family law rules respect equal status of spouses; legal subordination of women within marriage is inconsistent with protection of the family.
- Sex-based constraints on a married woman’s choice to work, and spousal veto mechanisms over her outside activities, can constitute an interference with private and family life.
- The duty to adopt domestic measures requires states to amend or repeal discriminatory legislation to conform domestic law to Convention obligations.
- A person can qualify as a victim where a discriminatory legal framework governs their rights and duties and affects legally protected interests, even absent a specific implementing act.

## Conclusion

The Commission concluded that Guatemala’s Civil Code imposed a sex-based hierarchy within marriage that limited married women’s autonomy and equal legal status, violating equality, family protection, and private life rights, and it called for statutory reform and individual reparation.


María Eugenia Morales Aceña de Sierra v. Guatemala, Case 11.625, Inter-Am. Comm’n H.R., Report No. 4/01 (2001)