By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterDR. EILEEN Boxhill, Director of the Legal Reform Unit, the Ministry of Justice, yesterday called for official systems to be put in place in recognition of common-law spouses.
She suggested this during the sitting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament which is examining the long-delayed Family Property (Rights of Spouses) Act. The committee will continue its deliberations in two weeks. Yesterday committee members conducted an initial overview of the features of the Bill.
"There is at present no mechanism for the declaration of someone as a common-law spouse. It is my personal view that now that we are moving towards the greater recognition of such a spouse, and we seem to have settled on the criteria for such recognition, that the time is right for some sort of formal mechanism," Dr. Boxhill said. She is a member of the technical team which is working with the committee in its deliberations.
The Family Property Act, first proposed 13 years ago, seeks to reform the existing law through the provision of new rules for the division of property between spouses. The Bill, which applies not only to married persons but also to persons in common-law unions, widens the previously accepted definition of the term 'spouse'. Also considered under the category of spouse, in the Bill, is "a single man and woman who have cohabited as man and wife for a period of not less than five years."
DIFFICULTIES
"I can see down the road some difficulties being encountered by third parties in particular," Dr. Boxhill warned. She pointed out that common-law spouses were often forced to prove their status after separation or death, in order to establish entitlement.
"It is all good that you can go to court and make your case, but why should the parties be subject to litigation?" she asked.
In January 2001, it was reported that the Bill would likely be passed within that same legislative year. At that time, K.D. Knight, Q.C., then committee chairman and Minister of National Security and Justice, said: "This is not going to take 11 more years. Not even 11 months."
The Bill, which had since languished in the House, was reintroduced in the Senate in March 2002 and referred to the Joint Select Committee now headed by the current Justice Minister A.J. Nicholson, Q.C.
