Indonesian Divorce on Foreign Marriages for foreign couples

The Indonesian law that govern marriages and divorce does not specifically regulates about how to dissolve foreign marriages, therefore many foreign nationals (based on information offered or presented by an Indonesian law firm) tends to dissolve their abroad marriages under Indonesian law.

This process is possible due to the point of contact in Indonesian-international civil law, which shows the direction upon the implementation of a certain legal provision from any particular country, i.e. regarding citizenship, place of object, place of legal action, and domicile for any interesting legal-facts in a legal case or event, in terms that a case contains foreign elements, therefore the case being performed is an Indonesian-international civil law case, and based on previous example cases here are certain aspects which would like to be acquired in doing this process:

  • Minimum to no alimony; as the Indonesian law does not emphasize the amount of the alimony, it is only based on the husband’s ability to provide, unless otherwise proven.
  • Faster and easier marital property divisions; if you have no prenuptial or postnuptial agreement took place on your marriage;
  • The divorce verdict issued in Indonesia by the Indonesian courthouse, does not and WILL NOT governs any and all assets located outside of Indonesia; as we all know all nations posses their own sovereignty, therefore the divorce verdict issued here cannot govern the property located abroad, and based on our previous cases this will be a perfect solutions for protecting all assets located abroad;
  • Faster process, since the court will held each hearing session in once in a week.
  • Similar to common divorce process, once the divorce verdict and the court covering letter is available the party need to further process the divorce certificate with the civil and population registry office in order to obtain the certificate.

Furthermore, based on previous cases there are some additional steps to take:

  • legalize both the divorce verdict and the divorce certificate with the issuing office;
  • legalize both the divorce verdict and the divorce certificate with the ministry of justice;
  • legalize both the divorce verdict and the divorce certificate with the ministry of foreign affairs;
  • sworn and authorized translation of the divorce verdict and the divorce certificate;
  • legalize both the divorce verdict and the divorce certificate with the nominated embassy of where the divorce certification will be used further; commonly the legalization will be used to renew or to update the current civil status of the party that conduct the divorce at the respective civil registry office.

The process is completed once the nominated embassy has finalized their civil status update towards its citizen or the applicant.