Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014

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Civil Partnership ceremonies performed at certain embassies or diplomatic missions

26. (1) The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 59I:

59IA. (1) This section applies to a civil partnership where the ceremony of civil partnership took place during the period commencing on 1 January 2011 and ending on the day before the commencement of this section, in an embassy or diplomatic mission in the State.

(2) A civil partnership to which this section applies, subject to subsection (3), shall be and shall be deemed always to have been valid as to form as if it would have been so valid had it been a civil partnership registered in the State in compliance with this Act.

(3) This section shall not operate to validate a civil partnership to which this section applies where—

(a) an impediment to the civil partnership existed on the date that the ceremony of civil partnership took place,

(b) the parties to the ceremony of civil partnership have obtained a decree of dissolution of civil partnership under section 110 of the Act of 2010, or a decree of nullity of civil partnership, and for the purposes of this paragraph, a decree obtained, where legal proceedings resulting in the decree were begun but not completed prior to the commencement of this section, shall be taken to have been obtained before that commencement,

(c) a party to the civil partnership has entered into a later marriage or civil partnership with another person, or

(d) the parties to the civil partnership have entered into a later civil partnership with each other.

(4) Nothing in the application of this section to a civil partnership where the ceremony of civil partnership took place during the period commencing on 1 January 2011 and ending on the day before the commencement of this section, in an embassy or diplomatic mission in the State—

(a) gives or affects any entitlement to an interest—

(i) under the will or codicil of, or on the intestacy of, a person who dies before the commencement of this section, or

(ii) under a settlement or other disposition of property made before that commencement (otherwise than by will or codicil),

or

(b) gives or affects any entitlement to a benefit, allowance, pension or other payment—

(i) payable before, or in respect of a period before, commencement of this section, or

(ii) payable in respect of the death of a person before that commencement,

or

(c) affects tax in respect of a period or event before the commencement of this section.

(5) If subsections (1) to (5) would, but for this subsection, conflict with a constitutional right of any person, the operation of those subsections shall be subject to such limitation as is necessary to secure that it does not so conflict but shall otherwise be of full force and effect.

(6) This section shall not apply to a civil partnership where the ceremony of civil partnership takes place on or after the commencement of this section, in an embassy or diplomatic mission in the State.”

(2) (a) At any time before the coming into operation of the amendments to the Principal Act effected by subsection (1), both parties or the surviving party to a civil partnership that took place in an embassy or diplomatic mission in the State during the period commencing on 1 January 2011 and ending on the day before that coming into operation, may attend at the office of a registrar, furnish information and particulars referred to in paragraph (b) and notify the registrar in writing, in a form for the time being standing approved by an tArd-Chláraitheoir, of their intention, or, as the case may be, the intention of the surviving party to the civil partnership that the amendment of the Principal Act effected by subsection (1) shall not operate to validate the civil partnership.

(b) The registrar, where satisfied to do so after consideration of the following information and particulars shall record the intention of the parties or surviving party referred to in paragraph (a):

(i) evidence of identity of the parties;

(ii) if appropriate, evidence of death of one of the parties to the civil partnership;

(iii) evidence that the civil partnership was solemnised in an embassy or diplomatic mission in the State prior to the commencement of this subsection together with, where required by the registrar, a document duly authenticated which purports to be a translation thereof;

(iv) the signatures of both parties or the surviving party to the civil partnership.

(c) Subsection (1) shall not operate to validate a civil partnership in relation to which the registrar, before the coming into operation of subsection (1) , records, under this subsection, the intention of the parties that it shall not be so validated.