Menu
Russian law of divorce has abolished the concept of fault of one of the spouses as a requirement for divorce since the Decree 1917 Regarding Divorce. Since then the concept of “no-fault divorce” has permanently remained in the Russian family legislationn regardless of all its modifications and amendments. Currently the substantive law provisions are contained in Chapter IV of the Russian Family Code 1995, and the procedural rules are laid down by the Code of Civil Procedure.
First of all, a divorce can be made through
(i) A civil acts officer (or a Russian consul if spouses live abroad) is competent to grant an administrative divorce under one of the following grounds:
(ii) If the couple has common minor children, the divorce is granted by court, Code of Civil Procedure allowing a claimant to choose the court:
According to art. 22 of the Family Code an irretrievable marital break-down is to be established in court. While evaluating the marital break-down, a court may take into account the following circumstances:
But if both spouses are consent the court may grant divorce without evaluating the marital break-down and its causes (art. 23 of the Family Code). In addition to the Family Code and Code of Civil Procedre, it is the Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the 5th November 1998 No 15 “Regarding Applilcation by Courts of Legislation on Divorce”, which further clarify material and procedural conditions and requirements of divorce.
In fact, about 80% of all the divorces are made through court procedure – see the Explanatory Note to the Draft Bill No 1056247-6 “On Amendments to the Family Code and Article 233 of the Code of Civil Procedure “. It is interesting to note that the legislator made an effort in this Draft Bill (which failed) to strenghen the position of marriage by prolonging the period of administrative divorce (3 months) and the court procedure (6 months) to allow spouses to think over their decision.
Hence, the Federal Law on Mediation 2011 states that mediation is possible in family law disputes. Several regions have launched pilot projects for family mediation, which proved to be rather a success. Still, it is very seldom used in court procedure (in less that 1% of all family disputes in 2015).
Given that the regime of matrimonial property is regulated in Russian Family Code, but dispositions regarding the acquisition, possession, use of property in joint ownership are regulated by provisions of Russian Civil code, there is no question that division of matrimonial property on divorce is very complex. Hence, to avoid discrepancies and to further the more consistent judicial practice, the Draft Bill No. 835938-7 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation (regarding matrimonial property)” which is now under the second stage consideration in the State Duma, aims to bring the provisions of family law in line with the provisions of civil law, bankruptcy law and state registration of real estate legislation.
+7 977 366 13 76
familylawyer.expert@gmail.com
expert_family_lawyer