Cannon 1592.step 1 tells us when an excellent respondent was summoned however, fails to look, and you will doesn’t supply the courtroom that have a sufficient factor in so it inability, the latest judge would be to claim that individual missing, additionally the case would be to proceed to brand new decisive view.
It’s actually well-known adequate you to canon laws provides outlined rules to the what a great tribunal is meant to do whenever a beneficial respondent decides to disregard the latest summons mentioned above
You don’t need a degree in canon law to appreciate that this is only common sense. After all, there are one 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 really wants to argue that the marriage try invalid because of defective concur on behalf of brand new respondent, it may be you’ll be able to to show that it with no respondent’s venture. There is numerous witnesses-sometimes even together with bloodstream-family unit important source members of your missing respondent-who are able and happy to attest towards tribunal regarding the fresh new respondent’s total choices, otherwise particular tips, providing the tribunal because of the research it needs.
Therefore the marriage tribunal will simply just do it with no enter in from the latest respondent
In the event the respondent is really vengeful as to think that low-collaboration commonly stands brand new petitioner’s instance, and come up with your/her waiting expanded into the need annulment, that isn’t always so. According to individual things, the fresh respondent’s inability to participate the procedure might actually ensure it is the new judge to question a decision even more quickly. Actually, from time to time brand new non-collaboration out of a good spiteful respondent might even help to buttress the latest petitioner’s claims: suppose that a great petitioner are saying that respondent has mental and/or psychological problems, and that eliminated him/their unique regarding giving complete say yes to the marriage. This new tribunal mails a great summons into respondent… who intensely runs the newest summons due to a newspaper-shredder and emails the new fragments back again to the newest tribunal in response. Do this type of unformed, irrational conclusion extremely damage the petitioner’s situation?
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 work out your rights does not mean you were denied your rights.