Useful information

The right court and applicale law in order to disolve the marriage.

Whenever a foreigner and a Polish citizen wish to get divorced in Poland, first it would be necessary to establish the applicable law. As per Art. 54 of private international law of 4 February 2011 (Dz. U. Nr 80 poz 432) in case of lack of common national law of the spouses, the applicable law will be the law of the country in which both spouses have had their place of residence at the moment the dissolution of the marriage was requested. If the spouses do not have joined place of residence at the moment the dissolution of the marriage was requested, the applicable law will be the law of the country where the spouses used to have their last joined place of living assuming that one of them still has his/her place of living there. In case of lack of the above mentioned the applicable law will be Polish law.

Get divorced in Poland – how to determine jurisdiction of a court?

According to EU Council Regulation No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgement in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, in the cases of divorce, separation and marriage annulement the courts of a specific Member State of the European Union will have jurisdiction on the territory of which the spouses have their usual residence or the opposing party has his/her usual residence or the requesting party has the usual residence, if the requesting party lived there for at least one year immidiately before submitting the request to divorce or for at least 6 months immidiately before submitting the reuest to divorce and the requesting party is citizen of the specific EU member State or in the case of the United Kingdom and Ireland where the party is domiciled.

It must be underscored that the above mentioned considerations apply to citizens of the European Union.

In case international couples from outside the EU get divorced in Poland,  in terms of jurisdiction will apply the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedures (art. 1103 and art. 1103 (1)). Its conent  is identical with art. 3 para 1 EU Council Regulation No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility.
For the applicability of the law the provisions of art. 54 of private international law shall be applied in the same way as in case of marriages between citizens of the EU.