Free divorce in Colombia was approved in the first debate of the House of Representatives

The representative to the Chamber for Valle del Cauca, Juan Fernando Reyes Kuri, announced that it was approved in the first debate, that couples who want to divorce can do so by mutual agreement, invoking the grounds set forth in the civil code or simply expressing their desire to end the relationship.

The announcement that was also celebrated by the House Representative for the Green Alliance, Katherine Miranda, adds that the individual decisions of the spouses continue to be respected in order to move forward with divorce proceedings freely, “without affecting the rights of their partner or their children.”

The project entitled “Free Divorce” aims to ensure that the process of separation can take place without the State having to intervene. In other words, one of the people in the relationship, if he wants to separate, can do so without having to plead and/or resort to other reasons.

adds the congressman.

Currently, the divorce process or procedure in Colombia must be done by the couple before a judge, where they must prove one of the 9 grounds set out in article 154 of the civil code:

1. Extramarital sexual relations of one of the spouses.

2. The serious and unjustified failure by one of the spouses to fulfill the duties imposed on them by law as such and as parents.

3. The outrages, the cruel treatment and the ill-treatment of work.

4. The usual drunkenness of one of the spouses.

5. The usual use of hallucinogenic or narcotic substances, unless prescribed by a doctor.

6. Any serious and incurable illness or abnormality, physical or psychic, of one of the spouses, which endangers the mental or physical health of the other spouse and makes the marriage community impossible.

7. Any conduct of one of the spouses aimed at corrupting or perverting the other, a descendant, or persons in their care and living together under the same roof.

8. The separation of bodies, judicial or, in fact, that has lasted for more than two years.

9. The consent of both spouses expressed before the competent judge and recognized by the latter by judgment.

The initiative has as authors, in addition to Juan Fernando Reyes and Katherine Miranda, the representative of the chamber Julián Penado.

The bill states that either spouse may file the divorce application at any time, together with a proposal of the measures to be regulated, resulting for the purposes of separation.

The process will emphasize the obligations of the members of the couple in the future and not on the actions or causes, described above, which is what is currently valued. “The judge may require the applicant spouse to create security rights or personal security for the fulfillment of what is contained in his or her divorce proposal,” explains the text of the bill.

It should be noted that this initiative would exclusively affect divorce proceedings, but it would not affect the nullity of marriage, they are two totally different legal figures, the second part of the assumption that at the time of marriage some irregularity is incurred, for example: one of the couples has a valid marriage , are close relatives, ignorance of the effects of this union, among others.

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