A reform meant to prevent consanguineous marriages has unexpectedly trapped many Azerbaijani couples in bureaucratic limbo.
Since amendments to the Family Code came into force this summer, marriage applicants are required to submit not only their own birth certificates, but also those of their parents — so authorities can verify the absence of blood relations through the Justice Ministry’s registry system.
While the rule aims to prevent close-relative marriages, it has created major obstacles for people whose parents have lost their birth documents or for those raised without parental care. Some couples, though unrelated, have found themselves unable to register their marriages simply because they cannot produce the required paperwork.
“My fiancée and I are not related, but both our parents were born decades ago in rural areas and their birth records were never digitized,” one Baku resident told Oxu.az. “ASAN xidmEt refuses to process our application until we find these certificates – which may not even exist.”
In response to growing public frustration, the Justice Ministry’s press service clarified that if applicants cannot submit their parents’ documents, registry offices are required to request the records themselves:
“Under Clause 3.3 of the Rules of State Registration of Civil Acts (Cabinet of Ministers, October 31, 2003), registry or consular officials must verify kinship via the Ministry of Justice’s information system. If that’s not possible, copies of the applicants’ and their parents’ birth certificates must be attached. When these cannot be provided, the registry office must independently obtain the relevant civil records from the parents’ place of birth or other available sources,” the statement reads.
The ministry added that birth records can only be requested by the applicants via notarized authorization, and in cases where parents are deceased, death certificates or equivalent documents may be accepted.
The amendments, signed by President Ilham Aliyev on July 23, 2024, ban marriages between individuals who share a common biological grandparent, as well as unions between uncles and nieces or aunts and nephews. The law officially took effect on July 1, 2025.
For now, many couples remain in uncertainty – caught between the law’s intent to protect public health and the system’s inability to handle missing or outdated documentation.
