If anyone gets married despite being prevented from doing so by a legal impediment (i.e. because they are not old enough, their legal capacity is restricted, their previous marriage or registered partnership has not been dissolved, the couple is related, etc.), a court annuls the marriage further to an application from anyone with a legal interest in the matter, except in cases where the marriage is prevented by the impediment of restricted legal capacity.
The marriage is deemed to be valid until it is annulled by the court. If a marriage is annulled, the law says that it never existed. A marriage cannot be annulled if it has already been dissolved or if its voidability has been remedied.
If a minor who lacks full legal capacity or a person of restricted legal capacity in this area has got married, their marriage cannot be annulled if they have conceived a child that has been born alive.
A court annuls a marriage further to an application from a spouse who has been coerced into expressing their willingness to marry by violence or the threat of violence, or who expressed their willingness to marry because they mistook the identity of the person they were marrying or mistook the nature of the legal act of marriage. An application for an annulment may be submitted within 1 year of the date on which the spouse, in the circumstances, could first lodge the application, or within a year of discovering the true state of affairs. In this case, the court annuls the marriage even if it has already ended because a spouse has died before the completion of annulment proceedings initiated by the other spouse, or if relatives in the descending order of a spouse who has been seeking annulment apply, within 1 year of that spouse’s death, for the court to annul the marriage.
A court may annul a marriage of its own motion, even if it has already ended, in situations where:
- it involves a person who has previously married or previously entered into a registered partnership or a similar union abroad, and that previous marriage, partnership or similar union abroad has not ended;
- it is between relatives in the ascending and descending order (i.e. grandparents, parents, children, grandparents, etc.), between siblings, or between relatives by adoption.
The same rules as those on the obligations and rights of divorced spouses apply to the obligations and rights that a man and a woman whose marriage has been annulled have in relation to any children they have had together and to their economic obligations and rights at the time the marriage is annulled.