A bigamous marriage
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
I was married in a hotel in Montego Bay on August 16, 2010. We have the certificate registered by the Registrar General’s Department. When we arrived in Europe, I found out that my husband was already married to somebody else.
Is there a way to make the Jamaican marriage invalid? We never validated the Jamaican marriage in Europe. In the meantime, we have been separated since the marriage and have an agreement of this separation by the Spanish court.
How can I get the cancellation of our marriage in Jamaica?
The short response to your situation is that your marriage was a nullity from the ceremony in Jamaica. No one can make it into a valid one, despite the fact that you were given a marriage certificate by the marriage officer who performed the marriage and who acted in line with his or her statutory duty by submitting it to the Registrar General’s Department to be entered in the marriage records.
You see, the Matrimonial Causes Act provides that when one of the parties to a marriage had a husband or wife who was alive at the time of the marriage, the marriage is void. As a result, you can apply for your ‘marriage’ to be pronounced void by the court here in Jamaica, the jurisdiction within which your marriage occurred. This pronouncement by the court would make the fact of your marriage being void legally recognised as being so. The result of this will be a legal certainty that you were never married to the bigamist.
You must, therefore, contact a lawyer here in Jamaica to assist you to prepare your application, in the form of a petition for a Decree of Nullity in the Supreme Court here. You will have to send your original ‘marriage certificate’, as it must be submitted and exhibited in the proceedings.
Since the new procedural rules for matrimonial proceedings came into effect, you will not need to come to Jamaica to attend court for your decree of nullity to be obtained. The proceedings can all be done on paper, that is to say, all the necessary documents can be sent from Spain. You can sign in Spain before a notary public whose appointment must be certified by the court in the city where you reside, as Spain is a foreign country; or before a Jamaican consul, in which case no certificate of appointment will be needed. Either of these officials must witness your signing of all documents, which you need to swear to.
You most certainly need the service of an attorney-at-law here to do and take your petition for nullity to completion. This legal representative can, after the decree is granted, send you the original copy of the decree granted by a judge of the Supreme Court and some certified copies for you to use and serve your bigamist husband.
I cannot tell you how long it will take or what it will cost as this you will have to get from the lawyer whom you retain. I am a bit confused that you said the marriage ceremony occurred in 2010 and that you discovered the bigamous situation after you and your ‘husband’ went to Europe; yet it is only now that you are seeking to rectify the situation legally. Anyway, this does not matter as your marriage was void from its inception and only needs to be so pronounced legally by the Supreme Court here. The Act itself states that nothing can be taken as validating any marriage which in law is void and a decree of nullity can be granted.
So good luck, my dear. You just need to act to retain a lawyer here and instruct him or her to prepare a petition to obtain a decree of nullity on the ground that your ‘husband’ had a wife who was alive at the time of your marriage. Nothing can make it valid, even if you were not separated. It is void and that is that. You have a straightforward legal cause of action.
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 personal responses.
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.
