Dear Mrs Macaulay, My ex-husband and I were married for 18 years, but I divorced him eight years ago in the United States (US) and remarried. My ex-husband did not file the divorce papers with the registrar in Jamaica that I sent him. My marriage in the US has ended in divorce and my ex-husband and I have decided to give our relationship another try. However, he does not want to file the divorce papers there, stating that we are still married in Jamaica and that there is no need to file the papers there, and so we could just move on as husband and wife.

Is this legal and what would be the implications? Can we just pick up where we left off since he did not file the papers there? Or do we have to file the papers and remarry?

A US divorce decree, once it is done by a court with the legal jurisdiction to deal with divorce petitions, does not need to be filed in Jamaica to be legally effective and binding here. Your ex-husband did not need to file anything related to the divorce petition which you filed and obtained in the US anywhere or in any office or court in Jamaica. There is no legal requirement that this be done. The Matrimonial Causes Act which deals with divorces in Jamaica does not have any provision which requires any foreign divorce decree to be filed in Jamaica. Divorce decrees made in the courts of foreign countries are legally effective without any formal process that they be filed or registered here in Jamaica. This is the same for Jamaican decrees of divorces made by the Supreme Court of Jamaica being accepted in foreign countries, unless a particular country has legislation which requires some further process within its borders for a Jamaican and/or other divorce decrees or other foreign court orders or judgements to be filed, re-issued or registered.

Your ex-husband must therefore recognise the fact that he was legally divorced after your application to the US court. You and he were and are legally divorced. Your second marriage was valid and also terminated legally.

So what is the situation for you both? Your status is that you are a twice-divorced woman and your ex-husband’s status is that of a once divorced man. To legally reconcile, you must re-marry.

You both need to disclose to the marriage officer who you choose to officiate your re-marriage ceremony the fact of your divorce statuses. Your first marriage certificate when you and your ex got married would have stated that your status and his were spinster and bachelor. Your second marriage certificate should have stated that you were a divorced woman, and now you must disclose your true status and so must your ex — that he is a divorced man and you are a divorced woman. This is required pursuant to the Matrimonial Causes Act.

All the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide private, personal responses.