Background
Both parties were Chinese nationals long resident in England with property here. One asserted that the marriage had already been dissolved by registration divorce in China, defeating the other’s claims as a spouse; the other challenged the authenticity and procedural validity of the registration. Before applying section 46 of the Family Law Act 1986, the English court needed an accurate account of how divorce actually works in China.
Instruction and questions addressed
As Single Joint Expert we addressed the court-approved questions: (1) the two routes to divorce under Chinese law — registration at the civil affairs bureau and court proceedings — and the requirements of each; (2) the operation of the thirty-day cooling-off period introduced by the Civil Code in 2021; (3) the evidential force of the divorce certificate and the underlying registration file, and the notarisation and legalisation requirements for use abroad (including the apostille procedure following China’s accession to the Apostille Convention); and (4) whether the divorce in question was validly effected as a matter of Chinese law.
Key points of the opinion
The report explained that registration divorce requires genuine mutual consent and agreement on children and property, completed through application, the thirty-day cooling-off period, and collection of the divorce certificate, upon which the divorce takes effect; court divorce takes effect with the judgment or mediation statement. It also explained how the underlying civil affairs file can be retrieved to verify authenticity.
Having examined the registration file and the divorce agreement, the report concluded the divorce was validly effected under Chinese law, and supplied the Chinese-law factual foundation for the English classification question — whether the divorce was obtained by “proceedings” or “otherwise than by proceedings” — for the court’s application of the 1986 Act.
Outcome
The court accepted the expert evidence, recognised the divorce, and the matter proceeded as an application for financial relief under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984. This combination — validity of a Chinese divorce plus consequential financial relief — is among the most frequent occasions for Chinese law expert evidence in cross-border family cases.