DIVORCE BEFORE A LATIN-TYPE NOTARY IN THE REFORMED SLOVENIAN LAW

Abstract

Divorce before Latin-type notaries, as an alternative to court procedure, has been present on the European continent since the early 2000s. Forms of such divorce first appeared in Eastern European countries. However, since 2015 there has been a regulation of the powers of notaries for consensual divorce in the countries of Western and Southern Europe. The last among European countries to prescribe the consensual divorce before notaries is Slovenia, as part of the reform of family and non-contentious law and procedure. In this context, the paper discusses the novelties and basic principles of family court proceedings in the reformed Slovenian law. A special part of the paper contains an analysis of the consensual divorce before Slovenian notaries. The reason for choosing this legal system is the circumstance of the same starting point of development with Croatia, the similarity of these two legal systems, as well as the fact that in these Central European EU member states, reform efforts in one usually follow reforms and results in the other. Then follows an analysis and discussion of notarial divorce from a Croatian perspective, in particular on the circumstances that should be taken into account when considering its regulation, in order to reflect and achieve the prominent advantages. The concluding part of the paper contains some thoughts of the author and his de lege ferenda projections for the Croatian regulation, but also for the states in its neighborhood.