Poland is the world leader in terms of number of applications submitted to the church arbiter for annulment of marriage.
Not a long ago, the Italians were at the first place. We also surpassed the other catholic and more populated country - Brazil, which has 200 million inhabitants. This data came out from the Vatican's annual statistics 'Annuario Statisticae Ecclesiae'.
To the Polish diocesan court, some 10 thousand applications were submitted in 2008 to nullify the marriage. The arbiters accepted more than 3,5 thousand proposals. It is three times more than what it was nine years back.
"In Italy, nullification of marriage is more effective in civil court. In addition, the church arbitration is very cheap and this is the reason it is so popular there," notes priest Aleksander Sobczak, the vice-officer (in terminology of world - vice-president) of the tribunal of Gniezno, arbiter in the office of Primate Poland and writer of the book 'Finding of nullification of marriage and other marriage procession in church'.
According to the legal experts, the increasing number of applications to the church arbiter is due to increasing number of civil divorce, although one cannot compare it with other.
Divorce is break-up of marriage life, and nullification of marriage means that there was no marriage at all. Because, the Catholic church says that there is no place of divorce or nullification of marriage.
Every sixth or seventh Pole after receiving civil divorce try to get a marriage nullification statement from the church. According to the data of GUS, in 2009 the civil court gave around 72 thousand divorces (in 2008 it was 66 thousands).
"In the most cases, the couples have already finished the civil divorce process, but both sides want to start a new life. For instance, the next partner wants to have marriage in church," said Marcin Kramek, a certified lawyer by Warsaw Archbishop.
The cost of the whole process is from 500 zloty to few thousands. The procession of matter take five to six years.
In Poland, the certified lawyer by bishop is around 50. To get registered in the list of lawyer, one need to wait often six months and even more.
source: Gazeta Wyborcza
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