A LITTLE-KNOWN law that prevents people marrying their sons- or daughters-in-law is likely to be scrapped after a European Court ruling yesterday that it breaches human rights.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg said that to deny in-laws the right to wed was a breach of their human right to marry and found a family.

The ruling, which is expected to prompt a change in British law, was made in a case brought by a Warrington couple who were refused the right to marry in Britain because the man had been the father-in-law of the woman, who was more than 20 years his junior. Identified in court only as “B” and “L”, the couple claimed that the marriage ban was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights which protects the right to marry and outlaws discrimination.

The judges were told that the woman, identified only as “L”, wanted to marry the 60-year-old man, “B”. She had originally been married to his son, but that marriage had broken down and the woman’s relationship had developed with the father.

The court was told that a son from the woman’s first marriage now calls his own grandfather “Dad” and that the couple plans to adopt him. The man and woman went to the European Court of Human Rights after being refused permission to marry by the Superintendent Registrar at Warrington Register Office.

Under the Marriage Act 1949, such marriages are prohibited unless both parties are older than 21 and both former spouses are dead.

The ban was based on the view that it is unlawful and possibly undesirable or even sinful for someone to marry their father-in-law or mother-in-law.

But a report by a group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1986 recommended that the law be reformed, arguing that the ban was based “simply on tradition and cannot now be justified on any logical, rational or practical ground”. However, amendments to the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act of 1986 to lift the ban were not adopted.

Yesterday the Strasbourg judges said that the British bar on in-law marriages, although pursuing a legitimate aim of protecting the integrity of the family, did not prevent such relationships occurring, as there was no provision in British criminal law that would prevent extramarital relations between the couple.

The judgment continued: “Furthermore, since no incest or other criminal law provisions prevented extra-marital relationships between parents-in-law and children-in-law, it could not be said that the ban on the marriage (between “B” and “L”) prevented “W” (the child from the previous marriage) from being exposed to any alleged confusion or emotional security.”

On marriage, the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Britain is a signatory, states: “Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.”

The judges said that exceptions had been made in Britain when it was deemed that “no harm would ensue” from such a marriage. In a previous, similar case Parliament had even declared that barring the marriage between in-laws “served no useful purpose of public policy” — a position that undermined the rationality and logic of the law banning such marriages.

It is possible for a marriage between a former parent-in-law and child-in-law to be permitted in individual cases by a personal Act of Parliament.

The personal Act effectively exempts the individuals from the statutory ban. But whether such an Act is passed or not is at the discretion of Parliament. No personal Act has been sought or passed since 1987.

The couple was awarded nearly £12,000 in costs and expenses in a case that will oblige the Government to consider changing national legislation to allow automatic right for any parents-in-law to marry their children-in-law.

A spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said that it was considering the judgment but declined to say whether a change in the law would result from the ruling.

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