Legal Question in Family Law in Lebanon

Dear Sir,

Being a Lebanese Maronite, we presume that your brother was married under the Maronite Church Laws, and accordingly we are giving you our answer based on this presumption.

If our presumption is correct, the Maronite Court will have jurisdiction to rule over this case.

As per the Maronite Church rules, cheating is not a cause of divorce by itself; it may only lead to separation. In fact, there is no "divorce" under the Maronite Church rules, but you can obtain what we call to be an "annulation of the marriage", meaning that you need to find reasons that were existing at the time of the marriage ceremony to cancel it. Cheating being a fact that occurs after the marriage, it would not be considered as a reason for divorce but can lead to separation only. Therefore, in order to obtain a cancelation, your brother needs to find reasons related to the marriage itself: the incompatibility of the couple, the inability of his wife to take care of him, etc... would be valid reasons for cancelation. In all cases we would need to discuss more details with your brother in order to advise on the proper reasons.

Our first advise for him however would be that he tries to have a sit with his wife and find an amicable settlement for the situation covering the bellow points:

1- The Divorce in itself (meaning the cancelation of marriage)

2- The kids guardianship, custody and alimony

3- The fate of the common properties (if any): cars, house, bank account, etc...

If an agreement is reached, we will need to implement it. One of the parties raises a case, the other accepts it, and the Maronite Church will ratify the Settlement.

If there is no way to have a settlement, we would advise your brother to proceed by raising a case against his wife first. Of course we would need to have the details of his case to base the case on reliable reasons. However, the advantages of raising the case first (before his wife), is to be able to keep the kids under his guardianship during the process of divorce. Moreover, raising the cheating issue will come as a counter reaction from her end, and have less impact as if she starts the case first.

Regarding the other raised details, we will need to have a sit with your brother to look closely at his case.

For any further assistance, you or your brother can send us an email at [email protected] or call us at +961.1.200878

Hope that the above clarifies a bit your vision,

Kind regards