EL CASO DEL MATRIMONIO CELEBRADO POR EL RITO GITANO: LA DISCRIMINACIÓN ÉTNICA Y RACIAL A DEBATE

Abstract

Th e European Court of Human rights has pronounced a sentence in opposition to the Spanish State, dated on December 8, 2009, which revokes a judgment of its Constitutional Court (STC 69/2007, April 16), in which there was scorned the resource of protection of a Spanish citizen, whose widowhood allowance had been refused for being joined in marriage celebrated by the gypsy rite. Th e judicial pronouncements on this polemic case can be an object of analysis and study from the point of view of its juridical argumentation and its theoretical foundations. From the reasons exposed in both judgments, it is possible to think about the concept of racial and ethnic discrimination and to warn transformations in the current Rule of Law linked to the multiculturality and to the confl ict between fundamental rights.