Is getting a divorce possible without an attorney?

Dear Mrs Macaulay,

Is it possible to get a divorce on my own in Jamaica, without using an attorney? What is the process? We have no children or shared assets together, and have been married seven years.

My short answer to your question is that yes, it is possible in law to do so, because in all legal matters, parties have the legal right to act on their own behalf or choose be represented by lawyers of their choice. In criminal matters, if the accused cannot afford to get their own lawyer, then if legal aid applies to their charges,  a lawyer on the legal aid list would be assigned to represent them in all the proceedings related to and during their trials.   In civil matters, within which divorces fall, any party can  choose to act in person as I have said.  The Constitution of Jamaica protects this right of citizens.  However, the real question you should ask is, is it sensible for any person to apply for and process their own petition for the dissolution of their marriage without a lawyer’s assistance?

You have asked what the process is. I shall answer this as well as I can, but despite the fact that you and your spouse have no children or shared assets and so your petition would be a simple, uncomplicated one, the entire proceedings, starting with the preparation of the petition and the affidavit accompanying petition, the documents in blank and a certified copy of your marriage certificate, which must be attached to it and all served on the respondent spouse, are very technical and must be perfect as per the forms which appear in the matrimonial proceedings rules and their amendments.  Then, regarding the hearing or applying to dispense with hearing, the affidavit in support of the application to dispense with hearing and the decree nisi for dissolution of marriage which must also have accompanied the petition, are all very technical and the slightest mistake would cause the registrar to stop the processing of your file and send you a requisition pointing out your mistake(s) and requesting that you correct them and refile your document(s).

It is not just that as a lay person you would not know the law and rules which relate to the contents of particular paragraphs of the documents, because even experienced lawyers receive requisitions for corrections to be done.  This may happen more than once and so the delay caused can be quite substantial.

You must now know that I would strongly advise that for dissolution of marriage proceedings, that the services of a lawyer should be obtained to handle any and all such petitions because of the high level of the complexity and technicality of the rules in the Civil Procedure Rules 2002 and their amendments, one of which is in the Jamaica Gazette No. 4 published on  the 10th September 2015 as a judicial notice and all subsequent amendments of the said rules.  Though these rules also contain prepared forms of each petition and supporting affidavits and the decrees and other applications which may be relevant for some dissolution of marriage petitions, you would also have to decide whether you ought to apply for your petition to be dealt with on paper evidence alone, that is to say, that you have decided to proceed in default and must then file an application to dispense with the hearing (there is a prepared form for this, which must however be accompanied by your affidavit of the required evidence such as in your petition and the fact of the service of your petition on your respondent spouse, who may not have acknowledged the service or did so but stated that the they were not contesting any assertion in your petition and other relevant matters as the rule requires).  So you have the strict technicality of the rules, and you would also have to contend with how to phrase the contents of your factual assertions and pleas.   Also, if you succeed with the first hurdle of obtaining your decree nisi, you must also apply for your decree absolute with your supporting affidavit of the evidential matters it must contain.  You must also attach and file with your application the drawn-up decree absolute (to be signed by the judge dealing with your application) which you would have prepared from the prepared form in the rules with all the necessary modifications which are applicable to your own circumstances and your divorce proceedings.

You must also include the searches you have made in the Supreme Court Registry since that decree was made, and the result of those searches and all relevant facts which the rules require. The application for your decree nisi to be made absolute is generally filed six weeks after the date of the grant of the decree nisi and must be done as per the rules, within one year of that date.

I must add that though I strongly advise that you or any lay person should use the services of a lawyer to prepare, file and prosecute your divorce proceedings, and though the prepared prescribed forms in the 2002 Civil Procedure Rules, in the closing paragraph of each document to be filed in the court registry of who is filing the document, all of them state only the name and other particulars of the attorney-at-law or firm of attorneys-at-law,  the amendments in the Gazette I refer to above, do in fact also refer in this paragraph to the name and address of the petitioner if appearing in person.  This latter supports my answer to you, that you can if you so wish and can manage it, get your divorce here on your own without using an attorney.

I hope that it is clear that this is all I can do to explain the processes for the application for the dissolution of any marriage in a column, as the whole would be extremely long and would fill a book.  It can be done by any person and I made this clear many years ago to the registry, but you must do it correctly and as the rules require and must also use the prescribed and published forms correctly or be subjected to copious requisitions from the registrar.  You should obtain a copy of the Matrimonial Proceedings Act and copies of all the Matrimonial Proceedings Rules starting with that collated with the 2002 Civil Procedure Rules and that of 2015 and all subsequent ones thereafter, from the Printing Office at the corner of Duke and Sutton Streets, Kingston, or find them in the Supreme Court or Parliament or the Ministry of Justice websites of the Laws of Jamaica.

I wish you the best by whatever means you decide to proceed.

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.