In Fernandes v State of Goa & Ors [2019] HCt of Bombay & Goa No.351 of 2017, the High Court has struck down as unconstitutional a provision of Portuguese law that restricted it from exercising the power of judicial review on orders passed by ecclesiastical courts annulling marriages between Roman Catholics in the former Portuguese colony.

According to Portuguese civil law, spouses who entered into a canonical marriage renounced the civil right of applying for a divorce. Decree No. 35461 of 1946 – the result of a Concordat in 1940 between Portugal and the Holy See – provided that canonical Christian marriages could be performed before Church authorities upon production of a no-objection certificate from the registration officer and Article 19 transposed into Goanese law the exclusive jurisdiction of marriage tribunals over matters of nullity. Continue reading →