Divorce by Mutual Consent

DIVORCE BY MUTUAL CONSENT — Articles 50 et seq. of the Family Code:

A civil marriage may be terminated by the death of one of the spouses, by annulment of the marriage or by divorce. Divorce is the judicial termination of a marriage on the basis of a deep and irretrievable breakdown of the marriage or mutual consent reached by the spouses. The second case results in much faster court proceedings. The spouses must have reached a “serious and unwavering mutual consent” to separate and must submit an agreement concerning the most important matters arising from their life together, as identified by the law. These include the children’s place of residence, personal contact between the parents and the children, the amount of child maintenance, and the parent with whom the children will live after the divorce, that is, the exercise of parental rights. The latter must be distinguished from “deprivation of parental rights”, which is ordered only where the parent poses a danger to the child’s person, health or upbringing, or where the parent, without a valid reason, does not care for the child or provide maintenance.

Under Bulgarian law, it is unacceptable for either parent to disengage from raising the child or providing the child with care and guidance. For this reason, the Family Code and the Code of Civil Procedure allow the other parent to seek judicial protection of their own lawful interests and those of the child. The spouses may be released from the duty to live together, but the remaining obligations arising from the former marriage continue to apply.

Termination of marriage by mutual consent has many advantages over contested divorce proceedings, in which the parties may dispute some or all of the matters that would be settled by agreement in a divorce by mutual consent. Divorce under Article 50 of the Family Code spares the spouses from having to prove the facts that caused the breakdown of the marriage and from publicly disclosing details of their intimate family life. Divorce by mutual consent is the least painful and most appropriate form of terminating a marriage and is also in the interests of the children. The law provides for divorce by mutual consent precisely so that spouses can avoid the distressing disclosure of parts of their private married life, which is necessary to establish a deep and irretrievable breakdown in contested divorce proceedings. Once the court finds that the parties’ consent is serious and unwavering, it may not refuse the divorce and must dissolve the marriage.

An agreement between the spouses concerning the consequences of the divorce is a necessary condition for divorce by mutual consent. The court approves the agreement if it is complete, that is, if it regulates all the relationships specified by law and listed above in this article. If the agreement does not meet any of these requirements, the court directs the spouses to supplement or amend it within a time limit set by the court. A further advantage of divorce by mutual consent is that the spouses may freely regulate their relations according to their own judgment rather than the court’s. The amount of maintenance and the period for which it is payable may be agreed freely. At the same time, the court may refuse to approve the agreement if it finds that the agreement is contrary to the law or morality.

If you are facing questions concerning the termination of a marriage by divorce, or the maintenance of children born during a marriage or outside a civil marriage, you should consult a specialist in this field: a family-law attorney with experience in divorce matters.