COUPLES will be able to apply for a divorce one year after getting married, following a Legco ruling yesterday.
Before the passage of the Matrimonial Causes (Amendment) Bill yesterday, a couple could not obtain a divorce until three years after their wedding.
Secretary for Home Affairs Michael Suen Ming-yeung said the underlying objective of the new bill was to reduce the hardship, acrimony and distress that so often accompanied divorce proceedings.
The bill also provides for the introduction of a new 'non-adversarial' means of obtaining a divorce by joint application based on either one year's prior separation or one year's period of notice.
Before the new arrangements are in place, divorce proceedings must continue to be conducted on an adversarial basis, with one party as petitioner and the other party as respondent.
Mr Suen said that under the one-year-notice procedure, the couple was not obliged to separate.
'This will mitigate difficulties caused by the current requirement to find separate accommodation in advance of a divorce where prior separation is relied on in divorce proceedings,' he said.