Bulgaria: The Supreme Court of Cassation imposes gender change in civil status under European pressure

Context

On July 23, 2026, Genethique reports the decision of the Bulgarian Court of Cassation authorizing the change of sex in civil status, a decision explicitly motivated by the need to comply with European law. Bulgaria, a member state of the European Union since 2007, had until now maintained the impossibility of modifying the mention of sex in official documents, a position reinforced by a decision of its Constitutional Court rendered in 2023. The judicial reversal ends a national resistance under continuous jurisprudential pressure.

The Facts

The decision of the Court of Cassation explicitly follows in the wake of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The CJEU, in its Deldits ruling of October 4, 2024 (case C-4/23, Grand Chamber), imposed on the Member States to update personal data in accordance with the declared gender identity, based on the General Data Protection Regulation and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Three rulings and an order have been rendered in this sense by different colleges of the Bulgarian Court of Cassation, acting on the binding effect of this case law on the national judge, without going through the Parliament of Sofia. We had covered in publication #1069 the parallel logic imposed on Poland.

Doctrinal Analysis

The Church constantly recalls that the sexual difference inscribed in human nature is part of the Creator's design. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, in paragraphs 369 and 370, that "man and woman are created, that is to say, willed by God: in perfect equality as human persons, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, in their respective being as man and woman". Paragraph 2333 specifies that "each, man and woman, must recognize and accept his or her sexual identity". The Declaration Dignitas infinita (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, April 8, 2024) devotes several paragraphs to rejecting gender ideology and "sex change" as an attack on human dignity, while recalling the respect due to persons.

Stakes for the Church and the Faithful

It is not the Brussels legislator who legislates directly in this matter: it is the Court of Justice of the Union which, by capillarity, disarms the national legislators. The principle of subsidiarity, reaffirmed by Centesimus annus (John Paul II, May 1, 1991) in paragraph 48, is emptied of its substance when the European norm is manufactured outside any democratically elected body, on the basis of a technical text (the General Data Protection Regulation) diverted towards an anthropological doctrine.

Critical Reading and Blind Spots

The blind spot is procedural. The Bulgarian judge did not rule on the content of the national law, he merely invoked a "European conformity" that short-circuits the parliamentary debate. This mechanism, designated by constitutional doctrine as "government of the judges", becomes the silent norm of law production in the Member States.

To Reflect and Act

We had covered in issue 4 the crisis of the logos identity identified by Cardinal Sarah before the European Parliament. Bulgaria offers a silent illustration of this. Defending natural law is also about defending national legislative power against its jurisprudential dispossession.