General And Territorial Jurisdiction Regarding Judging The Hearing Of Petitions For Divorce When Both Parties Or Only One Of Them Resides/Reside In Another State

Romania’s accession to the European Union guaranteed the precedence of theprovisions of the constituent treaties of the European Union and other mandatory community regulations over the provisions of the national laws based on the constitutional principle set out in Art.148, para. (2) This study analyzes the issues regarding the identification of the competent court in matters of divorce, of legal separation or the annulment of the marriage focussing on three practical situation: a) The hypothesis that the spouses have their habitual residence in different Member States; b) when both spouses have Romanian citizenship, had a joint dwelling place, but after the separation in fact, before the action for divorce was filled, the spouse - Defendant resides abroad/his or her residence is unknown; c) the spouses are of different nationalities, the Petitioner spouse is a Romanian citizen, but none of them lives in Romania any longer, having residences in different states, members of the European Union.