After the Divorce Referendum

LastStop

Now that the divorce referendum looks like it's been passed I've a couple of questions.

How long will it take to introduce new legislation?
What happens to those people who are in the process of getting a judicial separation but haven't gotten to court yet? There are people who will be eligible for divorce rather than judicial separation, do they need to discontinue their case and reapply ? Will judicial separation still be a thing going forward ?

jimmycrackcorm

Should be a similar timeframe of not shorter than the SSM / abortion referendum legislation. I'd expect it completed by the end of the year.

Caranica

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Should be a similar timeframe of not shorter than the SSM / abortion referendum legislation. I'd expect it completed by the end of the year.

Might be much longer unfortunately. There were issues flagged in the run up to the election that led to reports that it could be up to two years. Will have a look and see if I can find them.

LastStop

Caranica wrote: »

Might be much longer unfortunately. There were issues flagged in the run up to the election that led to reports that it could be up to two years. Will have a look and see if I can find them.

Would be interested in seeing that if you could post.

randomrb

Caranica wrote: »

Might be much longer unfortunately. There were issues flagged in the run up to the election that led to reports that it could be up to two years. Will have a look and see if I can find them.

The main barrier I see is that realistically we will have a general election in the middle at some stage which can really stall legislation like this.

boombang

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/divorce-bill-signed-into-law-4678698-Jun2019/%3famp=1

Some reporting like this gives me the expectation that the period has already been reduced? But is this not yet the case?

Also, this Tweet from the President:

https://twitter.com/PresidentIRL/status/1138482951744839680?s=20

If the change in legislation isn't sufficient, what else needs to change and when might this happen?

Thanks

Peregrinus

The process for amending the constitution has three stages:

1. The Oireachtas passes a Bill to make an amendment to the Constitution.

2. The people aprrove the Bill in a referendum.

3. Then, and only then, the President signs the Bill, and it becomes law. The Constitution is now amended.

The newspaper report you link to, and the tween from the President's office, both refer to the signing of the Bill which amends the Constitution. The amendment to the Constitution doesn't change the divorce laws; it just give the Oireachtas power to change them.

Actually changing them requires another Bill to be introduced in and passed by the Oireachtas, and signed by the President. SFAIK the government has published a draft Bill for consultation, but it hasn't yet been introduced into the Oireachtas, debated, voted on or passed.

LastStop

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2019/78/

Apparently all stages of both houses have been passed.

So the law is almost ready to be changed ? Read in the examiner that Minister Flanagan wanted it in by 31st Oct, Brexit date but now that Brexit has been flexed that didn't seem to happen.

Also I asked what happens to those people already waiting for judicial separation and will they need to start a new process from scratch, apparently their cases can be converted.