Mirin, or How to Impose Self-ID in the EU

CJEU Case C-4/23

The Mirin case was recently decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case concerned a Romanian national, M.-A.A., who moved to the UK as a child with her parents. She applied for a change of name by deed poll and for a passport and driver’s licence with a male name and sex in 2017 and eventually acquired a GRC in 2020. She had become a British national in 2016 (so it was her British passport to be issued with a male name and her sex indicated as male) but retained her Romanian nationality and in 2021 applied for having her birth certificate amended to reflect her acquired male gender. Her request was refused by the Romanian authorities on the basis of the law in Romania requiring an application to the court in order to have one’s sex amended in the civil register. As the court summarises the facts of the case, a first inconsistency appears obvious: