The Constitutional Court simplified getting a divorce in the Dominican Republic. The higher court annulled Art. 27 of Divorce Law 1306-Bis that prohibited mutual consent divorce when the marriage had less than two years, and if the marriage had lasted more than 30 years, or when the husband was over 60 or the wife 50 years.
Mutual consent divorces are simplified versions of divorce and cost less to finalize.
The Constitutional Court ruled that Art. 27 violated the right to equality and the principles of reasonableness and proportionality.
The Constitutional Court considered Art. 27 discriminated for age, violating the Constitution.
It also pointed out that both the mandatory delay of two years to exercise the right to divorce by mutual consent, as well as its prohibition after 30 years of marital cohabitation, collide head-on with legal parameters.
The court ruled that it considers unreasonable and disproportionate the prohibition imposed on the spouses to interrupt by mutual agreement their project of life together, when they so decide, after voluntarily having granted their consent to marry, the court stated in judgment TC-0226-21, dated 30 July 2021.
It argued that the challenged article is part of a law enacted in 1937, when the political and social reality of the Dominican Republic was different from that of today.
The Constitutional Court pointed out that it seeks to prevent irrational regulations from continuing to form part of the legal system of a social and democratic state of law, as is the Dominican Republic, according to Article 7 of the Constitution.
Article 27 of the divorce law had been annulled in April 2019 by the Fourth Chamber for Family Matters of the Civil and Commercial Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the Santo Domingo province. Still, that ruling only had effect for the parties involved in that specific case.
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Listin Diario
4 August 2021