International Family Law News & Analysis

Australia testing online divorce filings

HMCTS tests fully digital divorce application

By Tony Roe

Philippines works on divorce legislation: Here's the grounds, and the background

The legislature's lower house has passed a divorce law, but the Senate seems far from it, on both sides of the aisle, and the President opposes it. The country currently does not have divorce, but it does have Legal Separation, and civil and religious annulments, and Muslims there are allowed to divorce by Islamic law. 

The “Instituting Absolute Divorce and Dissolution of Marriage in the Philippines” Act passed by a vote of 134-57. ...

The proposed law lists several grounds for divorce, including:

• One of the spouses undergoes a gender reassignment surgery
• The reasons listed to currently allow for a legal separation and annulment
• Separation of spouses for at least five years
• Legal separation by judicial decree for at least two years
• Psychological incapacity
• Irreconcilable marital differences

That last one could be the wild-card that makes all the other grave-sounding grounds unnecessary, depending on how the courts interpret. In almost all U.S. states and most countries, the path of least resistance has been to interpret it as allowing divorce on demand, with no proof needed.

A statement from the country's bishops said:

“Even couples in seemingly successful marriages would often look back and recall the countless challenges that had almost brought their relationship to a breaking point if they had not learned to transcend personal hurts through understanding and forgiveness, or sometimes through the intervention of a dialogue facilitator such as a marriage counselor,” the bishops’ statement said.

“In a context in which divorce is presented as an easy option, marriages and families are bound to break up more easily. More children will grow up disoriented and deprived of the care of both parents.”

Quotations are from "Philippines edges closer to passing divorce law, despite opposition from Catholic Church", CRUX, 3/20/18.

Could India have a single family law code for all religions?

Law Commission all set to go through family laws of all religions

By Raghav Ohri in the Economic Times

Italian divorce law is so unusual that couples flock to Collaborative Divorce to avoid court.

COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE HAS NOW TAKEN HOLD IN ITALY: STATUS AND PROSPECT

By Marco Calabrese

Saudi Arabia's Five Silliest Divorces

Five top strange reasons for divorce in Saudi

Height, camel, WhatsApp messages… and more

 

Emirates 24/7 News

Saudi judge, wife's uncles force couple to divorce

"A Saudi judge sided with a pregnant woman’s uncles and divorced the wife from her husband on the grounds she is of superior origin. Maha Al Tamimi, in her 8th month pregnancy ... said her uncles filed a law suit to divorce her from her husband, a soldier stationed in South Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, on the grounds she married him without her father’s approval.

"But Tamimi said she had her elder brother’s consent for marriage and that her father has a second wife and is not living with them. ... Tamimi said she had taken her father to court long time ago because he had rejected all her suitors and mistreated her.

 

Pregnant woman forced to divorce

Wife appeals Saudi King for help

Emirates 24/7 News, Thursday, April 07, 2016

Expats' marriages more stressed, divorces harder

Everything in this Wall Street Journal article, posted on LinkedIn by the consummate family lawyer, Betty Sandler (Vanity Plate: "SCOURGE"), matches what my father Richard Crouch and I have observed in our combined 60+ years of practicing international family law. Over half our cases are international in some substantial way.

Expat scholar Yvonne McNulty, an associate faculty member at SIM University in Singapore, found in her study, “Till Stress Do Us Part: The Causes and Consequences of Expatriate Divorce,” to be published in June in the Journal of Global Mobility, that expat life brings its own form of marriage stressors. Dr. McNulty studied 38 expat divorces in 27 countries and found a range of issues: trailing spouses who may find themselves with a loss of identity after a move; a lack of a longtime community that might bolster a struggling couple; and long work hours mixed in with extensive travel that pulls couples apart."...  When couples do break up the results are far more serious, she says, with international battles over child custody, confusion over which country has jurisdiction over the divorce, and huge relocation costs for companies that have sent entire families overseas.

One element that can intensify problems, she says, is the expat community itself, which can “become almost like a toxic influence on a marriage.”

“It’s like a groupthink attitude. If one or two individuals are engaging in extramarital affairs the men tend to say, that gives me permission to do it.” Some common expat destinations, particularly Asia and the Middle East, are “notorious for changing a marriage,” Dr. McNulty says.

... 

Another problem is social isolation. Most expat couples are far removed from any kind of setting – family, friends, communities – that might have bolstered a struggling marriage. Dr. McNulty says that in her research, “one of the strongest things that came out was the lack of role models or mentors” for troubled marriages. Many of the women she surveyed said to her, “If we had been home, my parents, his parents, his brother would have pulled him up by the scruff of his neck and said, ‘What are you doing?’”

In addition, the expat community is not always willing to get involved. “When you’ve got marital problems, the other expat wives think you have a disease, and they shun you,” Dr. McNulty says.

Divorce, Global Style: For Expat Marriages, Breaking Up is Harder to Do

By DEBRA BRUNO in Wall Street Journal — World, Mar 18, 2015

S. Korean appeals court allows no-fault divorce for at-fault plaintiff

Last month an appeals court in Seoul reversed a lower court ruling and gave a divorce to a petitioner who had lived apart from his wife for 25 years, with no contact or communication, after having an affair and a child with another woman.

The court said the general rule is still not to grant a divorce requested by an at-fault spouse, but there should be exceptions:

"'While being separated for the 25 years, their marriage has effectively ended,' presiding Judge Min Yu-suk said in a ruling last month. 'The plaintiff has also financially supported his children with the wife, and she now is financially stable.'

"It is the first ruling after the Supreme Court allowed more exceptions in September while maintaining the country's "fault divorce" system, in which the spouse responsible for the breakdown of the marriage is not allowed to file a divorce lawsuit.

"In a 7-6 ruling, the top court said it is too premature to change the law in consideration of the country's social and economic conditions. But it expanded the scope of grounds for exceptive cases: when the spouse at fault is taking care of his/her partner and children enough to make up for the fault and when enough time has passed to make it meaningless to place the blame. (Yonhap)"

The case does not overrule, but rather interprets and distinguishes, the above-noted September, 2015 Supreme Court decision that went the opposite way. That decision, and the "irreconcilable differences" statute it is based on, were described on this blog at "Adulterer / deserter can't unilaterally divorce wife, even 15 years later - S. Korea Sup. Ct."

Court rules in favor of unfaithful spouse's divorce suit

Korea Herald 11-1-15

 

 

India: Muslim women fight instant "triple talaq" -- 1 word thrice spoken, texted, skyped, etc.

After the article below came out, India's  All India Muslim Personal Law Board upheld triple talaqs, calling them part of the "Islamic ethos" according to the Sept. 3, 2015 Times of India. 

India's Muslim women fight to end triple talaq law that yields instant divorce

In India, Muslim women’s lives are being ruined because men can end marriages simply by saying ‘talaq’ three times – even on social media

By Amrit Dhillon in The Guardian, 8-10-15

via The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

Related articles

Indian Muslim Law Board Upholds Triple Talaq

Triple Talaq System a Crime, But No Scope of Change: Muslim Law Board

MUSLIM WOMEN AGAINST "ORAL DIVORCE" AND POLYGAMY - Misna - Missionary International Service News Agency

Nearly all India's Muslim women reject 'triple talaq', polygamy, survey finds | Reuters

Adulterer / deserter can't unilaterally divorce wife, even 15 years later - S. Korea Sup. Ct.

South Korea Divorce: Cheating Husband Can't End Marriage With Wife He Left 15 Years Ago, Supreme Court Rules

By Adam Lidgett @AdamLidgett on September 15 2015 in International Business Times

Based on:

"Divorce not allowed for cheating husband"

By Lee Kyung-min in the Korea Times, 9/15/15

The 7-to-6 decision implemented Korea's 1965 divorce law, which allows divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences, irretrievable breakdown of a marriage, or others reasons that undermine a union, according to the Korea Times article. The law, as interpreted by the courts, does not allow a husband to file for a divorce on those grounds when the real reason for the breakdown is actually his adultery and desertion. He left his wife, with whom he had three children, in 2000 and began living with another woman, having one child with her.

The court was concerned that current law provides no way for the wife and children to get any support if a divorce is granted. 

In most cases in South Korea, as in most divorces before U.S. states allowed unilateral divorce, the parties make a mutual agreement which gives both of them a livable financial arrangement and allows the divorce to happen regardless of fault.

"More than 77 percent of the couples here divorce after assuming some portion of blame, which is in effect no different from no-fault divorce recognized in other countries," the court's majority said.

The case has caused great controversy in Korea. Those wishing to allow unilateral no-fault divorce cite a "right to freedom of choice and to the pursuit of happiness" and say marriage is a private, personal relationship. Supporters of current divorce law cite the financial distress divorce imposes on women and children. They say changing the law would erode personal responsibility and mutual trust in society. They also say that under the country's civil law system, marriage is a legal contract requiring effort, good faith and contribution from both parties, just like other contracts.