Marriage, divorce and love dominated the parliamentary debate on Thursday morning, when the Opposition party, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), tried to introduce legislation to simplify divorce. According to the liberal SaS, the state shouldn't interfere in relationships between two people. Its proposed amendment to the Family Act being discussed in parliament ignited a fierce discussion, however.
Christian Democrat (KDH) Member of Parliament, Marian Kvasnička, said divorce was for cowards. Another KDH MP, Julius Brocka said the suggested simplification would be a logical step only if the divorce rate in Slovakia were low and it were difficult to get divorced, but he stated that Slovakia already has a high divorce rate and such legislation would only make things worse. Smer-SD MP Otto Brixi asked sardonically whether the final aim was to enable people to get married via e-mail and get divorced on Facebook. He claimed 40 percent of marriages end in divorce in Slovakia, and after this amendment it would be 60%.
SaS MP Jozef Mihal defended the proposal, claiming that when a marriage is in ruins, there's no point in complicating the divorce via bureaucratic obstacles. The liberals want to simplify the divorce process in two ways. First, couples without children or with adult children would only need to sign a notary statement. Couples with small children would be able to get a divorce via agreement, but the court wouldn't look into the reasons for the split.
