1859 - Reform Laws

The Reform Laws, issued between 1855 and 1860, and above all in 1859, by Benito Juárez’s liberal government during the Reform War, separated Church and State. They nationalized Church property, created civil marriage and secularized cemeteries.

On July 28, 1859, the Civil Registry Law formally established the civil registry: since then the State, not the Church, records births, marriages and deaths.