CEDAW/C/GC/33 implementation of all fundamental rights, including the right to substantive gender equality. B. Civil law 43. In some communities, women are unable to approach justice systems without the assistance of a male relative, and social norms hinder their ability to exercise autonomy outside the household. Article 15 of the Convention provides that women and men are to be equal before the law and that States parties must accord to women a legal capacity in civil matters identical to that of men and the same opportunities to exercise that capacity. The civil law procedures and remedies to which women are to have access include those in the fields of contracts, private employment, personal injury, consumer protection, inheritance, land and property rights. 44. The Committee recommends that States parties: (a) Eliminate all gender-based barriers to access to civil law procedures, such as requiring that women obtain permission from judicial or administrative authorities or family members before beginning legal action, or that they furnish documents relating to identity or title to property; (b) Enforce the provisions set out in article 15 (3) of the Convention that all contracts and all other private instruments of any kind with a legal effect directed at restricting the legal capacity of women shall be deemed null and void; (c) Adopt positive measures to ensure that the freedom of women to enter into contracts and other private law agreements is enforced. C. Family law 45. Inequality in the family underlies all other aspects of discrimination against women and is often justified in the name of ideology, tradition and culture. The Committee has repeatedly emphasized that family laws and the mechanisms of their application must comply with the principle of equality enshrined in articles 2, 15 and 16 of the Convention. 13 46. The Committee recommends that States parties: (a) Adopt written family codes or personal status laws that provide for equal access to justice between spouses or partners irrespective of their religious or ethnic identity or community, in accordance with the Convention and the Committee’s general recommendations; 13 (b) Consider the creation, within the same institutional framework, of gender-sensitive family judicial or quasi-judicial mechanisms to deal with issues such as property settlement, land rights, inheritance, dissolution of marriage and child custody; and (c) In settings in which there is no unified family code and in which there exist multiple family law systems, such as civil, indigenous, religious and customary law systems, ensure that personal status laws provide for individual __________________ 13 15-13094 See, in particular, general recommendation No. 29 on article 16 of the Convention (economic consequences of marriage, family relations and their dissolution). 17/25