Canon 1592.step you to definitely informs us whenever an excellent respondent try summoned but fails to appear, and you can does not supply the court that have an acceptable reason for so it inability, the fresh courtroom should be to declare that individual absent, and situation should be to move on to brand new definitive judgment.
Is in reality common adequate that canon rules provides detail by detail instructions to the just what an effective tribunal is meant to do when a great respondent determines to ignore the new summons listed above
You don’t need a degree in canon law to appreciate that this is only common sense. After all, there are one Porto Riko gelin or two parties to a marriage-nullity case-and if one party doesn’t feel like cooperating, that doesn’t mean justice is automatically going to be refused to the other! It will base its decision on the evidence collected from the petitioner and his witnesses. So what Craig’s pastor and the tribunal official told him is correct. If Craig can show that (for example) his own consent at the time of the wedding was defective-a concept that has been discussed numerous times here in this space, in “Contraception and Marriage Validity” and “Canon Law and Fraudulent ong many others-then the marriage is invalid regardless of whether his ex-wife submits her own evidence or not.
Remember that it takes two people to marry validly. This means that for a valid marriage, both spouses have to get it right-but for an invalid marriage, only one spouse has to get it wrong. If the marriage is invalid due to defective consent on the part of the petitioner and he/she can prove it, then the tribunal can find it has all the evidence it needs to render a decision, without any input from the respondent.
Yet , even if the petitioner desires to believe the wedding try incorrect because of defective concur with respect to this new respondent, it may be you’ll be able to to show it without any respondent’s venture. There could be multiple witnesses-sometimes even in addition to bloodstream-friends of the absent respondent-who’re able and willing to testify towards tribunal regarding the new respondent’s full choices, or specific actions, offering the tribunal with the proof it needs.
So the wedding tribunal will just do it without the type in of the newest respondent
In case your respondent is really vengeful on think that low-cooperation will stands the fresh petitioner’s circumstances, while making him/their own wait offered to the desired annulment, that is not always thus. According to private factors, the new respondent’s incapacity to participate in the method may actually make it the fresh legal so you’re able to thing a choice even more quickly. In fact, sporadically the latest low-venture of a great spiteful respondent could even help buttress the fresh new petitioner’s says: imagine that a beneficial petitioner try stating the respondent keeps intellectual and/otherwise psychological troubles, hence averted your/her regarding offering full agree to the wedding. The tribunal emails good summons into the respondent… which furiously works the summons owing to a paper-shredder and you may emails the brand new fragments returning to the fresh new tribunal as a result. Carry out this sort of unformed, unreasonable decisions extremely damage the fresh petitioner’s case?
Let’s say that the marriage tribunal ultimately gives Craig a decree of nullity, which will mean that he is able to marry someone else validly in the Church. So long as his ex-wife really was informed of the case by the tribunal, and knowingly chose not to participate in the proceedings, she will not be able to claim later that her rights were violated and have the decision invalidated as per canon 1620 n. 7. That’s because refusing to exercise your rights does not mean you were denied your rights.