Marriage, unmarried couples, partnerships, divorce, judicial separation, maintenance obligations

a) Sources of law

The Act on private and procedural international law.

b) Scope of legislation

The Act on private and procedural international law regulates issues related to the capacity of a person to enter into matrimony, conditions of entering into matrimony and conditions for the validity of marriage, the dissolution of marriage by divorce, a marriage annulment, and the mutual rights of a child’s parents who are not married. The maintenance obligations of the parents and children are also regulated.

c) Relevant connecting factors

The capacity to enter into matrimony, including the conditions for the validity of marriage, is governed by the law of the state of which the person concerned is a national (the lex patriae of the betrothed), the form in which the marriage takes place is governed by the law of the place where the marriage is held (lex loci conclusionis contractus).

Divorce is essentially governed by the law of the state of which the couple are nationals at the time the proceedings commence (the lex patriae of the spouses).

The rights of the mother of a child not married to the child’s father are governed by the law of the state of which the mother is a national at the time the child is born (the lex patriae of the mother at the birth of the child).

For maintenance obligations of parents towards their children the applicable law, with the odd exception (see 3.4 above), is the law of the state of which the child is a national (the lex patriae of the child); the parents’ claims to maintenance vis-à-vis their children are governed by the law of the state of which the parent making the claim is a national (lex patriae).

d) Mandatory rules, national public policy (ordre public) exception

The Criminal Code contains relevant mandatory legal provisions, e.g. prohibiting bigamy.

Matrimonial property regimes

a) Sources of law

The Act on private and procedural international law.

b) Scope of legislation

This legal regulation regulates matrimonial property regimes, including any contractual arrangements.

c) Relevant connecting factors

Personal and property matrimonial relations are essentially governed by the law of the state of which the husband and wife are nationals (the lex patriae of the spouses), except in cases where they have different nationalities, in which case Czech law is the applicable law.

Where matrimonial property regimes are regulated by a contract, these relations are governed by the law applicable to the matrimonial property regimes at the time this contract was concluded (the lex causae of the law applicable at the time the contract on matrimonial property relations was concluded).