I don’t know if he’s living or dead
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
I resided in Jamaica for five years and spent three years there as a married woman. I am now seeking to dissolve the marriage after being separated for over 25 years. I don’t know the whereabouts of my spouse, and if he’s living or dead. We got married at my home in Jamaica and to my knowledge a certificate was delivered, but I do not have it nor do I remember the name of the marriage officer. I was born in France but I am a Jamaican citizen by descent. How do I dissolve this marriage? I have been living in the United Kingdom for 25 years.
You have waited for a very long time before trying to do something about your marriage. Twenty-five years is a very long time to have been separated and to have taken no steps to contact the other person or dissolve the marriage ties.
The first thing which you have to do is to apply to the Registrar General’s Department in Jamaica via their website for a search to be done for your marriage certificate. It does not matter that you cannot remember the name of the marriage officer, what you must remember and tell them are the date of your marriage and the town and parish plus street address at which the marriage ceremony occurred. You must also apply for certified copy of it.
Secondly, you must also apply to the same office for a search to be done in the Register of Deaths for evidence of your husband’s death if this has occurred. For this you must give to them his full name and address as you had it when you left Jamaica, or when you last had any word from him.
If the result of the first search for your marriage certificate is successful and you obtain a certified copy of it, and the second search for evidence of his death is unsuccessful, then you ought to consider obtaining the services of an attorney for a decree of presumption of death and dissolution of marriage.
The application for a decree of presumption of death would be based on whether you receive a negative answer from the Registrar of Births and Deaths to your application for them to conduct a search for any evidence of your husband’s death and on the fact that you have not heard anything from him or of him for over 25 years as you state in your letter.
The application, which will also speak to a dissolution of marriage, will be based on the fact that your marriage is clearly broken down irretrievably and that you and he have lived separately and apart for over 25 years.
I see no difficulty in you obtaining, upon your application to the Supreme Court, a decree of the presumption of your husband’s death and also dissolution of your marriage based on what I have stated above.
If the search for evidence of your husband’s death is in the affirmative, then obtain a certified copy of his death certificate and that would be the end, because then you would know when you stopped being a wife and became a widow.
I trust that this has clarified matters for you and you can move ahead to ascertain what your real status is at this time. You can, of course, having retained a lawyer in Jamaica, have that person conduct the searches on your behalf and obtain certified copies of certificates. If any positive results arise from such searches, then they could proceed to apply to the court on your behalf and also advise you if any records are found.
Good luck.
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.
DISCLAIMER:
The contents of this article are for informational purposes only and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.
