Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which altered the provisions regulating divorce.It removed the constitutional requirement for a defined period of separation before a Court may grant a dissolution of marriage, and eased restrictions on the recognition of foreign divorces. [1]
The Constitution of Ireland adopted in 1937 included a ban on divorce. An attempt by the Fine Gael–Labour Party government in 1986 to amend this provision was rejected in a referendum by 63.5% to 36.5%. In 1989, the Dail passed the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, which allowed Irish courts to recognize legal separation.
Reflecting this, s.5(1) of the Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Act 1986 provides "For the rule of law that a divorce is recognised if granted in a country where both spouses are domiciled, there is hereby substituted a rule that a divorce shall be recognised if granted in the country where either spouse is domiciled." [6]
The public policy underpinning the lex fori (the law of the forum court) will allow the court to ignore foreign limitations on the right to marry which are considered offensive, e.g. those based on differences of race or ethnic origin, or which allow persons of the same biological sex the capacity to marry.
In October 2019, Irish President Michael D. Higgins signed into law the Family Law Act 2019 which amended the 1996 Divorce Act by shortening the period of separation from four years to two years and reduced the waiting period, which occurs after the divorce is filed, from five years to three years. This Act became effective on 1 December 2019.
The Act does not make any provision for tax entitlements and allowances, nor does it grant any social welfare benefits to civil partners. These issues are to be dealt with in two separate Bills. The Act makes provision for recognition of foreign relationships in Ireland as civil partnerships.
On December 15 Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, announced on social media in an English-language statement that he had decided to shut the country’s embassy in Dublin.
The Constitution contained ambiguous provisions (e.g. Article 6 "All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good.")