Das Sorgerecht nichtverheirateter Väter

The work examines the current debate in family law regarding child custody for unmarried fathers. Despite the 2013 reform of the German law on the parental responsibility of unmarried parents, an unmarried father an unmarried father must still overcome several obstacles to obtain parental custody of his child. The decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the German Federal Constitutional Court ignited the most recent legal policy discussion on this issue. Against this backdrop, the current state of case law and literature is presented and examined. The parental custody reform is also discussed, beginning with the draft bill of the Federal Ministry of Justice, followed by a critical analysis of the law. As a biological father does not also have to be the legal father under German law, the issue of a biological father’s pursuit of legal custody is addressed. In the final section of the dissertation, the author presents an own legislative proposal.