In a judgment handed down on Thursday, 10 February, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the length of residence required for a Member State’s court to rule on a divorce petition may depend on the nationality of the petitioner (Case C-522/20).
An Italian national, who has been living in Austria for more than six months, disputed the fact that the Austrian court declared that it did not have the jurisdiction to rule on his petition for the dissolution of his marriage to his German wife, with whom he lived in Ireland. In his view, the required period of residence in Austria should be at least six months, as is the case for Austrians. However, the Austrian court invoked the ‘Brussels II’ regulation (2021/2003) on jurisdiction in matrimonial matters, according to which, in such a case, the petitioner must have resided in the national territory for at least one year immediately prior to filing his petition for divorce.
In its judgment, the Court of Justice found in favour of the Austrian court. According to CJEU, the plaintiff is not in a situation comparable to that of a petitioner who is an Austrian national. The European court held that an Austrian necessarily has institutional, legal, cultural, linguistic, social, family, or property ties to his country that contribute to establishing a real link to that State. Moreover, this link also ensures a degree of predictability for the other spouse, who may expect that a petition for divorce will be brought before the courts of his or her spouse’s Member State of origin.
The Court of Justice concluded that it is therefore appropriate that such a link was taken into consideration by the EU legislature when determining the period of actual residence in the territory of the Member State concerned that is required of the petitioner.
See the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/au (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)