KYIV. July 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) –The pilot project of marriages registered on a simplified manner within one day will start working in six Ukrainian cities: Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Kherson, Mariupol of Donetsk region and Severodonetsk of Luhansk region, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko has said.
“We are giving rise to a pilot project that will allow Ukrainian citizens to register their marriages during one day without bureaucracy, queues and any remnants of the Soviet Unoin, in particular, 30 days standby for marriage registration,” Petrenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
Petrenko noted that the project will be carried out in Mariupol and Severodonetsk so that the IDPs from the occupied territories could receive the Ukrainian legal documents during one day period, as well as Ukrainian soldiers could quickly get married at the place of their military units and formations dislocation.
This pilot project will be implemented in Kherson in order to facilitate the passage of the relevant procedures and documents for Ukrainian citizens from the occupied Crimea. Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv are chosen as major tourist cities, where many people may want to use this service.
The minister stressed that the provided innovation will remove the need to contact the Civil Registry Office several times, which are planned to be abolished in the course of time. Organization of the solemn part of marriage registration will be provided by the local authorities, public utilities or by state-owned enterprises working with them. Funds gathered for these services will go to local budgets.
In addition, the Ministry of Justice plans to transfer the function of civil registration to local authorities next year and within the framework of this project the minister wants to see how they will cope with this job.
Speaking about the divorce procedure, the head of the Justice Ministry said that the government intends to simplify the procedure for those cases when there is a mutual consent of both spouses and there are no unresolved disputes between them.
Petrenko said married couples who today want to get divorced must come to the Civil Registry Office three times: at first, to apply, and then to confirm their intention after 30 days, and only then come together to take the certificate of divorce.
Petrenko pointed out that the state will not hastily simplify the divorce procedure, introduce the possibility of breaking a marriage unilaterally in cases when there is no final decision of both sides to dissolve a marriage. The state should provide enough time and an opportunity to revise this decision, since the family is the basis of the Ukrainian society, and, if there is a chance for the preservation of a marriage, it should be provided.
