Commentary on Provisions Modification of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014.
80.Section 30 of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”) allows the Scottish Ministers to make regulations about the solemnisation or registration of a marriage or civil partnership that is renewed after a full gender recognition certificate has been issued. In its original form, subsection (1)(b) of section 30 only provided for regulations to deal with the renewal of a civil partnership where both partners had been issued with a full gender recognition certificate. A civil partnership could not be renewed where a full gender recognition certificate had been issued to only one of the partners, because the change of legal gender of one of the partners only would result in what was, at the time, an impermissible different sex civil partnership.
81.Paragraph 7 of schedule 2 broadens the terms of section 30(1)(b) of the 2014 Act so that regulations can be made in relation to the renewal of a civil partnership following the issuing of a full gender recognition certificate to one of the partners. This change brings the terms of paragraph (b) of section 30(1) into line with the terms of paragraph (a), which allows for regulations to be made about the renewal of a marriage following the issuing of a full gender recognition certificate to one or both of the parties to the marriage.