High proof standards on #Philippines #annulment cases prohibitive to ordinary #Filipinos


Hopefully this makes sense (also this is not legal advice)...

There are several grounds for annulment under Philippine law (fraud, mentally insane, impotence). Most of these are common contract defenses (they negate the existence of a contract of marriage).

Almost all these grounds (and this is key) have to exist the moment the partners marry. Only then can you annul a marriage. So it becomes hard to prove as you have show that a person defrauded you or was mentally unstable on the day of the marriage. Another favorite ground is psychological incapacity to contract marriage. Again you have to show that this incapacity existed at the time of the marriage. After being married for more than a couple of years, this is hard to do. The standard of proof is very high.

Annulment is a run around on all this….a run around that exists only because the Philippine justice system is, let's say, engages in the monetizing of justice. The parties who want to have their marriage annul go through the lower regional trial court, get an annulment and (this is another key point) either MUST not appeal the annulment to the supreme court.

If it were appealed the supreme court would take a hard look at the case, apply the higher proof standards and overturn the annulment because the parties have failed to prove that there were sufficient grounds for annulment. The Supreme Court would then say that there is no divorce in the Philippines to back up its reasoning.

There you have it a no-divorce policy that effectively encourages the people in conjunction with the Philippine lower courts to subvert the law/engage in corruption for expediency's sake.

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http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2014/10/is-same-sex-marriage-a-more-important-issue-than-divorce/comment-page-1/#comment-829974

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