Divorce by mutual consent in Morocco: how the procedure works

Divorce by mutual consent is the route the office recommends whenever the spouses can reach an understanding. It is quicker, less draining, and above all it preserves what needs preserving where there are children: a parental relationship that will have to function for a long time after the judgment.

What the spouses' agreement has to cover

The agreement is not only about the principle of separation. It has to cover its consequences, and this is where most hastily prepared files come unstuck. The points to settle are generally these:

• custody of the children and how visiting rights will work;
• maintenance due to the children and, where applicable, to the wife;
• the family home and what happens to jointly held assets;
• sums still owed arising from the marriage.

An incomplete agreement speeds nothing up: it merely postpones the disagreement by a few months. It is better to take the time to set it down point by point.

The hearing before the family court

Divorce by mutual consent remains a court procedure: Moroccan law knows no purely private divorce, and no agreement between spouses dissolves a marriage on its own. The spouses apply to the family justice section of the court of first instance with jurisdiction, which satisfies itself that consent is freely given and that the agreement does not prejudice the children's rights.

The court does not simply register what the spouses have agreed: it checks that the agreement does not harm the interest of the children.

That is why an unbalanced agreement can be set aside even though both parties have signed it. Drafting the agreement is therefore not a formality.

The documents required

Exactly what the file contains depends on the spouses' circumstances, but the following are almost always needed:

• the marriage certificate;
• copies of both spouses' national identity cards;
• the children's birth certificates;
• proof of income, used in setting maintenance;
• the agreement between the spouses, drafted and signed.

Gathering these before the first appointment saves real time: most of the delay seen in practice comes from a missing document, not from the court's workload. Spouses living abroad should raise the question of a power of attorney early, since it is usually executed before a Moroccan consulate and takes time to obtain.

After the judgment

The judgment pronouncing the divorce takes effect once it has become final, and it must be recorded in the civil status registers. The obligations it fixes — maintenance in particular — are enforceable: failure to comply opens enforcement proceedings, which form a separate procedure of their own.

This is often overlooked at the point of agreement. Maintenance that is poorly worded is hard to enforce, and the parties find themselves back before the judge over something they believed was settled.

Is a lawyer necessary?

The procedure is presented as straightforward, and it is when everything goes well. A lawyer's involvement serves first in drafting the agreement: that document will determine, for years, what each party owes the other. It serves next in checking that the file is complete and that the terms adopted will actually be capable of enforcement.