POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF DECLARING CIVIL AND CUSTOMARY MARRIAGES VOID

The consequences of declaring a civil marriage entered into during the existence of a customary marriage or vice versa void could have nowhere been fully canvassed. On the face of it, it merely calls for a declaration of invalidity of the existing marriage, but it raises various ancillary issues which have not been addressed. We do not discuss the judgments declaring marriages void, but focus on the consequences of such judgments. For a variety of reasons it is important to determine whether a civil marriage, concluded subsequent to a customary marriage, is valid or ab initio void, or vice versa. To mention but one reason: “Where immovable property, a real right in immovable property, a bond or a notarial bond – (d) is registered in the name of a person who on the date of the registrationwas a party to a marriage governed by the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 1998 (Act 120 of 1998) the registrar shall on the written application by the person concerned and on the submission of the deed in question and of proof of the relevant facts,endorse the change in status or make a note of the effect that the said person is a party to a marriage in community of property, as the case may be” (S 17(4) of the Deeds Registries Act 47 of 1937). When a marriage is void, no consequences flow from it, except in so far as it may be deemed to be a putative marriage. Lawyers, officials and the public at large still do not seem to realize that interms of sections 2(1) and (2) of the Recognition of Customary Marriage Act (120 of 1998) customary marriages entered into before and after commencement of the Act are for all purposes recognized as marriages. The case of Netshituka v Netshituka (426/10 [2011] ZACSA 120 dated 2011-07-20) has now given clear direction as to the validity or non-validity of civil marriages concluded after the Marriage and Matrimonial Property Law Amendment Act 3 of 1988. Also in Thembisile v Thembisile (2002 (2) SA 209 (T) par 32) Bertelsmann J held that a civil marriage contracted while the man was a partner in an existing customary marriage with another woman was void. The position of the validity of civil marriages, entered into prior to and after the said Amendment Act, will now be discussed.

Compulsory Portion in Hungary

Following the model of continental European law, Hungarian law introduced the compulsory portion in 1853, allowing in the closest blood-relatives to benefit from the estate of a deceased person against the testator’s wishes. In the course of the latest reform, the possible abolition (or at least limitation) of the compulsory portion was raised. However, at the time of the creation of the Civil Code of 2013 the legislator took the view that the compulsory portion had already taken root in the general legal awareness of the population and that its continuation could be justified. This view was strengthened by the fact that the majority of contemporary continental legal systems, in their quest for the protection of the family, tend to recognize a claim by the closest relatives to a compulsory portion. Traditionally in Hungarian law, the descendants and parents of the deceased were entitled to a compulsory portion in accordance with the order of intestate succession. Only since 1960 has the law also recognized the spouse as a person entitled to a compulsory portion. Previously the approach was that the spouse should be compensated through the rules of matrimonial property law and intestate succession. Since 2009 registered partners have been put in the same position as a spouse. Until 2014, the extent of the compulsory portion was one-half of the intestate share of the person entitled to a compulsory portion; today it is one-third.

10 Family and Personal Life

This chapter analyses the way in which the Supreme Court has handled a range of controversial issues affecting personal and family life. It explains the centrality of the family unit within the Irish Constitution and shows how the Court was for many years extremely conservative in its handling of cases involving adoption and illegitimacy. Its more flexible approach to ‘the family’ in the immigration context is then considered. The leading case on contraception (McGee) is closely examined before detailed treatment is given to the Court’s handling of legal questions relating to abortion (especially the X case in 1992). Its position on matrimonial property law and on the vexed issue of the right to assisted suicide are also suveyed. Throughout the chapter attention is focused on how the Supreme Court has been constrained by its perception of the views of the majority of Irish people.

Standards und Abgrenzungen im internationalen Familienrecht

The second ‘Dialog Internationales Familienrecht’, a conference on international family law, was held in Marburg in May 2019. Under the heading ‘Standards and Delimitations in International Family Law’, academics and practitioners dealt with benchmarks and classification issues that are currently under discussion in international family law. The conference focused on international family procedural law and international matrimonial property law. This publication is a collection of the lectures held at the conference. The contributions deal, inter alia, with the interests of children in family proceedings, situations of conflict in proceedings dealing with the legal consequences of divorce, the amendment of the Brussels IIbis Regulation as well as the new EU regulations on matrimonial property regimes. The publication is rounded off by an overview of the Federal Court of Justice's case law on international family law, as well as with deliberations on the violation of the personality rights of children on social networks and on the protection of adults in cross-border constellations.

Die Ratio des Schenkungsverbotes unter Ehegatten

The ratio behind the prohibition for spouses to donate to each other. Monopolising matrimonial property law in the dotal system. The present inquiry is based on the premise that the riddle of the highly contested rationale of the prohibition of donations between spouses can only be solved by taking into account the legal basis of this prohibition. The classical jurists treated the prohibition within the ius dotium, shorthand for ‘matrimonial property regime’, a legal matter heavily transformed by the lex Iulia et Papia which followed the goal of inciting the upper class to get married which would guarantee the desired offspring and control over the Emperor’s subjects. Considering the palingenetic context of the treatises on the prohibition, the lex Iulia et Papia is to be considered the legal basis of the prohibition which, therefore, has the purpose of channelling all economical transactions between the spouses into the ius dotium which in turn serves the goals of the lex Iulia et Papia. To sum it up: The prohibition was another legal ordinance in Augustus’ arsenal serving his fight for moral renewal, that is to say limitation of civil liberties, and the consolidation of his power.