DIVORCE CLAIM

An applicant (wife) or her authorities must take the following steps:

1.

• Filing a divorce application written or orally to religious court.

• The applicant is advised to seek information from religious court on how to make a divorce application.

• The divorce application can be changed except for bases of the application and demands. The changes of an application must be with respondent’s approval if the respondent has responded to the application.

2. The divorce application is to be filed to the religious court :

• If the applicant leaves joint residency without the respondent’s approval, the application must be filed to the religious court whose jurisdiction covers the respondent’s residential address.
• If the applicant resides abroad, the application must be filed to the religious court whose jurisdiction covers the respondent’s residency.
• If both the applicant and the respondent reside abroad, the divorce application must be filed to the religious court whose jurisdiction covers their place of marriage or to the Religious Court of Central Jakarta.

3. The divorce application must include:

• Name, age, occupation, religion and residential address of both the applicant and the respondent.

• Posita (ground facts and legal facts)

• Petitum (demanded things based on ground facts and legal facts).

4. Divorce-related lawsuits such as children custody, children expenses, wife expenses and marital property can be filed together with divorce application or after judgment of divorce has a final and binding force.

5. Paying the court fees. Yet, the poor can file their cases with prodeo (courts fees are waived).

6. The applicant and the respondent or their authorities attend court hearings upon summons from religious court.

CASE FINALIZING PROCESS

1. The applicant registers her divorce application to the religious court.

2. The applicant and the respondent are summoned by the religious court to attend court hearings.

HEARING STAGES

1. At the first hearing, a panel of judges tries to reconcile the two parties and both parties (wife and husband) must come in person (Art. 82 Act. No. 7/1989).

2. If the reconciliation effort fails, judges oblige both parties to follow mediation (Art. 3 point 1 Supreme Court Regulation No. 2/2003).

3. If mediation fails, the hearing of the case proceeds to the next steps: reading the application, response, denial, evidencing and conclusion. The respondent can file a rekonvensi (a lawsuit against the applicant) at the response stage before evidencing.

Judgments of religious courts can be as follows:

1. Lawsuit granted. If the respondent is not satisfied with the judgments, he can file an appeal to the appellate court through the religious court handing down the judgments.

2. Lawsuit dismissed. If the claimant is not satisfied with the judgments, she can file an appeal to the appellate court through the religious court handing down the judgments.

3. Lawsuit unaccepted. The claimant can file a new claim (application).

After a judgment has a final and binding force, the registrar of the religious court provides divorce certificates for both parties at most 7 (seven) days after the judgment has been officially and legally notified to both parties.

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