A marriage between a Spanish citizen and a British citizen, celebrated and registered in Spain, was divorced in London in 2022. What procedure must be followed to register the divorce in Spain?
Regarding:
Since 31 December 2020, the United Kingdom is no longer part of the European Union, which affects the application of European regulations, including Brussels I Regulation. As there is no bilateral agreement with the United Kingdom, depending on the date the divorce proceedings began, either Regulation (EC) No. 2201/2003 or the exequatur procedures established in Articles 41 and following of the Law on International Judicial Cooperation in Civil Matters (LCJI) will apply. In this case, based on the dates, Law 29/2015 on International Judicial Cooperation will apply.
Jurisdiction to hear exequatur requests is set out in Article 52 of the aforementioned law, which establishes that the Courts of First Instance of the domicile of the party against whom recognition or enforcement is requested, or of the person to whom the effects of the foreign court decision relate, are competent.
Subsidiarily, territorial jurisdiction will be determined by the place of enforcement or the place where the decision must produce its effects, being competent, in the last instance, the Court of First Instance before which the exequatur application is filed.
The documents required to accompany the application are detailed in Article 54.
