In the context of marriage, separation or divorce constitute unfortunate episodes that bring remarkable consequences to parents’ life. Specifically, both spouses need to find an agreement through which to arrange all the issues, relations, and aspects of the familiar life.
In the context of judicial separation, which conditions the intolerability of the familiar life, one of the spouses has the right to ask the Court to assess that the crisis of the marriage has been due to the other spouse’s behaviour. According to Italian Law, it is possible to obtain a declaration through which one of the spouses will be charged for the separation. In other words, it is common that domestic cohabitation and familiar life to be affected by one of the spouse’s behaviour.
VGS lawyers professionals confirm this legal trend and have dealt with several requests of this type. In fact, in the event the judicial authority will assess violations of marital duties stated in the art.143 of the Italian Civil code, the court will be able to give a judgment of separation with a charge for one of the spouses.
According to Italian case law, in order to obtain a charge for separation, it is fundamental that the breaches of previous duties took place before the separation proceeding. In addition, it is also crucial that there is a cause-effect relationship between the breach of marital duties and the intolerability of domestical cohabitation.
According to the art.143, the marital duties are:
- Duty of loyalty;
- Duty of fidelity;
- Duty of moral and economic assistance;
- Duty of collaboration in the interest of family life and cohabitation.
Additionally, a final duty is that both spouses contribute, according to their professional work capacity, to family needs.
Several times the Italian Cassation Court has expressed its opinion about the separation charges and sentenced those spouses that violated the fidelity and loyalty duty. VGS Italian Divorce Lawyers have dealt with several separation charge cases due to the breach of the fidelity duty. However, they confirm – in line with Cassation Court – that infidelity is the cause of the marital crisis. In any case, spouses’ behaviour shall be assessed with the purpose of finding events, relations, and situations that may depict better the crisis of the marital relationship.
Being charged for the separation has many consequences on the legal status of spouses after separation. For instance, the spouse charged with separation will lose his/her rights to receive alimony. This means that this spouse will only receive alimony if he/she is in a state of need. In fact, according to Italian law, spouse maintenance has two objectives, the first one is ensuring to the former spouse has certain living standards. The second one is ensuring minimum economic assistance if he/she is in a state of need.
One more aspect where the spouse is charged with separation is related to succession rights and inheritance duties. Specifically, the charged spouse will lose the inheritance rights in relation to the former marital status. However, he/she will maintain the right to a lifetime economic contribution, provided that he/she was entitled to alimony
The last aspect where a sentence of charge separation has consequences is the pension. In fact, the charged spouses will lose any right in relation to pension schemes and plans that were recognised in favour of the deceased spouse.
VGS family lawyers have been involved in many cases of separation cases connected with charge assessment. According to their experience, it is crucial to be assisted by experienced lawyers that will be able to interpret events, and situations of the marital life in favour or against the separation charge.