Author

Aleshina O.V.

Title of article

Sham marriage: problems of counteraction to offence

Section

Section 1. Methodology of law enforcement activities

Issue, year

1 (35) 2016

Abstract

The most common reasons for concluding sham marriages are caused by achieving improper purposes not related to the creation of the family. Such marriage is an object of commodity-money relations, which is contrary to marriage purpose. Fictitious nature of marriage is often obvious for registry office employees: doubts about the sincerity of feelings, too big age difference, asocial lifestyle of the groom (bride), their living in different countries, regions. Nevertheless, even in such cases they don’t have the right to refuse to register the marriage. Due to the fact that most often the person(s) needs to conclude sham marriage immediately, the right of registry offices to increase the mandatory period after which the state registration of marriage is carried out, is justified. As an effective means of countering sham marriages concluded for the purpose of obtaining citizenship through a simplified procedure, it is proposed to address to foreign experience involving the establishment of mandatory period, only after which such opportunity arises. For example, in Germany the spouse has such possibility after three years. It is proved that legislative fixing of obligatory publication of information about the upcoming registration of marriage (with the consent of the persons concluding the marriage) can prevent marriage if a future spouse is officially married or the bride and groom have family ties. Refusal to publish would be appropriate signal for the registry offices and the persons concluding the marriage. The role of other social norms (morality, ethics) in countering sham marriages is emphasized.

Keywords

sham marriage, measures against concluding sham marriages, legal liability.