Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Act, 1985
This Bill, circulated in 1985, was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas on 25 June, 1986, and came into force on 2 October, 1986.
The purpose of the Bill is to abolish the old common law rule according to which (as generally stated) the domicile of a married woman is in all cases the same as that of her husband and to provide instead that the domicile of married women shall be determined in the same way as that of any other adult.
The Bill also makes provisions for two matters which are related to the existing rule. The first is the domicile of minor children of the spouses (contained in section 4) and the second is the recognition of foreign divorces (section 5).
Section 5 (recognition of foreign divorces) makes new provisions to replace the rule as to when divorces granted in other countries are recognised by the law of the State. The former rule (as generally stated) was that foreign divorce was recognised in the State if the spouses were, at the commencement of the divorce proceedings, domiciled in the country where the divorce was granted, or (possibly) if, although the divorce was granted in a different country from the country where they were domiciled, the divorce was recognised by the law of the country where they were domiciled.
Since the former rule as to recognition of divorces depended on the rule that the spouses have the same domicile, the abolition of the latter rule makes it necessary to replace the rule as to recognition. Sub-Section 1 replaces the rule that a divorce was recognised in the State if it is granted in the country where the spouses are domiciled with a new rule to the effect that the divorce shall be recognised if it is granted in the country where either spouse is domiciled.
Sub-section 6 provides that section 5 shall not affect any ground on which the Irish Courts may refuse to recognise a foreign divorce apart from the ground that the requirements as to the domicile of a party are not satisfied. In particular, the sub-section will enable Courts to continue to withhold recognition if a spouse has not been given adequate notice of the divorce proceedings.