As Ukraine currently is under martial law, its cabinet has authorized some foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine to use the State Register of Civil Status Act for marriage and divorce registration.
Ukrainian journalist Yulia Tomchyshyn wrote in Express, the provision of the Resolution 66 will allow diplomatic missions to conduct state registration of acts of civil status, as well as to make changes to act records, renew or cancel. In addition, Ukrainian diplomatic missions will be able to reissue state registration certificates and various extracts from the register of civil status acts. For example, about birth, marriage, divorce or death.
Ukrainian legislation previously gave the right to diplomatic missions and consular sections of Ukraine to conduct state registration of acts of civil status of our citizens living or temporarily staying abroad, says Hanna Garo, lawyer, mediator, head of the Committee on Family Law of the National Association of Lawyers of Ukraine. But diplomatic missions accepted applications only from those Ukrainian citizens who lived in the district of the country where they were located. At the same time, diplomatic missions carried out state registration of divorce only for persons who permanently lived abroad.
What has changed?
From now on, Ukrainians living abroad can purchase relevant services regardless of their place and country of residence. Also, thanks to this resolution, some diplomatic institutions gained access to the State Register of civil status acts of citizens. Thanks to this, the process of marriage registration and divorce was significantly accelerated.
Which diplomatic missions gained access to the registry?
These are the embassies of Ukraine in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Turkey, Germany”, says Maryna Vitlina, an assistant lawyer, a member of the NAAU committee coordinator team. Ukrainian consulates in Krakow, Lublin, Wroclaw, and Gdańsk in Poland also have access to the register; German Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Munich; Turkish Istanbul and Antalya.
If a diplomatic mission has access to the register, it acts as a registrar and is authorized to issue the relevant certificate of registration of acts of civil status. I will note once again: it does not matter in which country citizens of Ukraine who wish to marry or divorce live. They can contact any of the diplomatic missions that have access to the register for the appropriate service.
And if the diplomatic mission does not have access to the register, what then?
The procedure for obtaining this or that certificate will take longer.
