pro-abortion. pro-divorce. i believe we have the god-given right to give up
when people go after no-fault divorce or abortion what they're really doing is trying to enshrine the sunk cost fallacy into law
it sounds like a joke but this is a genuine political belief of mine. you should be able to leave a situation you don't like. the government has no business trapping you in a relationship.
quitters rights!
The 'freedom to leave' is a central tenet of freedom. Most personal freedoms are dependent on that.
So fun fact time!
In my country we don't have "case law" we have ?regular law? where the documents the courts reference are Legal Documents Specifically and only. The judge doesn't have freedom of opinion outside the range explicitly specified by the law.
What we also have in my country is that you can only go to the gvt records building and sign a paper that says youd like to be divorced if: - you don't have a child - both people are present to sign it and if either of these is lacking you have to file a divorce claim to the court even if you and your spouse literally fully agree on everything, are besties and both just want to not be legally married anymore (the second person does not in fact have to show up in person to court, they can just send a letter where they say they agree to divorce)
The result of this process is a document called "court decision" / "decision of the court". It contains the actual resolution / court orders, and before it the full legal decision making process - quoting relevant legislation! - that led to it. The creativity of... whoever is in charge of composing these... ranges from 1 page to like 5 pages of small print.
The legislation that is quoted outlines the fundamental conflict related to this sort of case:
- According to part 2 art. 112 of the Family Code of Ukraine the court makes the decision to dissolve the marriage if it is established that further life together and preservation of marriage would contradict essential interests of one of them.
- Also, according to the provisions of parts 3 and 4 of article 56 of the Family Code of Ukraine, each of the spouses has the right to terminate marriage relations. Forcing into termination of marriage relations, forcing into their preservation, including forcing into sexual contact using physical or psychological force is a violation of the rights of the wife, the husband to freedom and personal autonomy and may have legal consequences.
(These are both copypastes from the actual translated court decisions I have on my computer because I used to work as a translator. On my work laptop I had a growing collection of legal quotes like these so I could reuse translations of the same articles lmao)
There is also a DECISION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT JUDGES that the first one of those should be interpreted as "the court must be stringent and may ONLY grant divorce IF it has proven that preservation of marriage would contradict essential interests".
But, of course, the court cannot /deny/ a divorce claim, because that would be forcing them into preservation of marriage relations and would thus violate their rights to freedom and personal autonomy!
What this means in practice is that in every single divorce claim the court swears up and down that ACCORDING TO TESTIMONY AND SUBMITTED EVIDENCE, it is PROVEN that
- The parties have lost the feelings of love and respect towards each other, there is no possibility of reconciliation.
- The parties do not deny that the marriage and family relations between them are terminated and have formal nature. The parties do not keep a common household. They do not agree to make peace.
- The marriage relations are terminated in the family of the plaintiff and the defendant due to different views on family life. The parties reside at different address. Taking into account these circumstances, the court believes the family to have fallen apart irreparably, the renewal of marriage relations to be impossible, as further life together and preservation of marriage would essentially contradict the interests of the parties.
- Over the course of their life together the spouses have started to conflict due to different worldviews. At the moment the marriage exists formally, the spouses do not keep a joint household and do not have marriage and family relations since [month of year]. The plaintiff and the defendant do not wish to renew these relations and believe it would be contrary to their interests.
- The parties have no desire to reconcile. The marriage cannot be renewed as there is no love, mutual trust and respect between the parties. From the explanation of the parties regarding the case, the court has established life together of the spouses failed due to lack of understanding which led to the loss of feelings of respect and love. Since [month of year] the spouses live separately, do not maintain marriage and family relations, do not keep a joint household, do not have a shared budget and live at different addresses. Parties do not agree to acts of reconciliation, did not find basis for reconciliation within the period provided by the court for reconciliation, as future family life is not possible, the marriage exists formally. At these circumstances the court concludes that the parties have proven the reality and unchangeability of their will expression regarding marriage dissolution.
(all real quotes with any specific information redacted)
It's a creative writing exercise for every single decision & it's amazing. Every single time NEITHER PARTY IS AT FAULT (because that'd be a whole different court process, I've translated a few of these too) but THEIR CONFLICT IS IRRECONCILABLE. They have different views on family life and have lost the feelings of love and respect towards each other. There is no understanding between them. There's like 10 phrasings like this that recombine to create a truly unique (or at least rare combinatorically) tale of woe. (The court process does not involve gathering evidence or hearing out testimonies because, and I cannot overstate this, they cannot actually make a different decision on a divorce claim because that would be illegal)
(There is also some international treaty Ukraine signed that also reiterates the right to divorce at will, and a whole bunch more of articles in the vein of "the husband and wife must respect each other" that make the whole thing funnier the more of them are quoted in the same document. I learned so much law from our people's struggle with our beloved bureaucracy. And earned so much $$$ from the misery of it)
