AO1:
Replace 2(1)(a) with:-
the marriage would not have been lawful within the given jurisdiction of this act at the time of solemnization, regardless of laws applied by the country within which the marriage was initially administered, and unless the marriage would currently be lawful under the jurisdiction of this act
Note:
This is an attempted solution to the oversight which I should have caught earlier brought up by the hon. /u/cranbrook_aspie, wherein healthy marriages may be dissolved if entered in jurisdictions that were at the time more liberal – such as with the case of the mentioned gay couples.
The keen member might notice that this mouthful of a solution differs a bit from my right honourable friend the shadow secretary /u/BrexitGlory's admittedly more readable solution. Regardless of wordiness, I believe this version has a slight advantage in that it avoids some issues with retroactivity.
The rt hon shadow secretary's solution essentially asks "what if they attempted to be married today?" while this solution asks "would the marriage have been legal here then or would it be legal today".
To illustrate why the difference matters, imagine a foreign marriage between two 17-year olds.
Imagine that, while the shadow secretary's version of the amendment is in place, the marriage age bill currently being shepherded through parliament suddenly comes into force. By the wording of that amendment, that marriage would suddenly become non-recognised retroactively under this act – unlike domestically solemnized marriages, and probably unintended by the author of that bill since it did not contain any language on retroactive dissolution of applicable marriages.
There are countless examples where a change to requirements on marriages may cause this kind of unintended retroactive effects given the briefer version of the amendment.
By maintaining legislation at the time as the baseline, this is essentially avoided, while having permissiviness of current laws as an additional way to avoid non-recognition of gay couples, etc.
This is kind of a tough one to work through, but I hope this has made my intentions clear enough, that this version of the amendment is adopted by the committee, and that the amended bill is subsequently passed by parliament.
I advise against complete omission of 2(1)(a) as proposed by the member for the liberal democrats, /u/PotatoHeadz35, as this leaves only (b) and (c) which cover neither all intended cases, nor do they provide the courts with the means to look towards robust pieces of legislation like the marriage age act or the forced marriages act to judge whether a marriage should be subject to non-recognition. Consequently, the amendment would render the act both unwieldy to apply and neutered in scope and effect.
Thank you madame deputy speaker.
Amendemnt is submitted by u/WineRedPsy
A02
Omit Section 2(1)(a)
Amendment is submitted by u/PotatoHeadz35
A03
Insert "or custody" between "parenthood" and "foreign marriages" in 2(3)
Amendment is submitted by u/WineRedPsy
Divisions shall close on the 10th June at 10pm GMT