These Regulations amend the Civil Partnership (Supplementary Provisions relating to the Recognition of Overseas Dissolutions, Annulments or Separations) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (“the 2005 Regulations”) to take account of the introduction of mixed sex civil partnership in Scotland.

Regulation 3 of the 2005 Regulations modifies the application of section 235 of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which concerns the circumstances in which an order granting an overseas dissolution, annulment or legal separation of a civil partnership is to be recognised in the United Kingdom. The effect of the modification is to relax the conditions for recognition in cases where the person seeking the order was habitually resident or domiciled in a country where same sex relationships aren’t recognised and where there is no provision for the granting of such orders in relation to same sex couples.

Regulation 2 of these Regulations amends regulation 3 of the 2005 Regulations so that the relaxation of the conditions for recognition instead applies where, in the country in question, there is no recognition of the relevant sort of relationship and no provision for the granting of such orders in relation to the relevant sort of relationship. “The relevant sort of relationship” is defined as referring to the sort of relationship generally, or those between same sex couples or those between mixed sex couples in particular.