Legal Question in Family Law in Mississippi

Re: married in India, want a divorce in USA ( Missisippi)

Mississippi has jurisdiction for a divorce if you have been a bona fide resident within the State of Mississippi for the six months immediately preceding the filing of the divorce petition. Miss. Code Section 93-5-5. The phrase "bona fide resident" is not defined but it may be synonymous with the legal concept of "domicle." Living in Mississippi and paying resident state taxes strongly evidence your intent to be Mississippi domicilaries.

If you intend for the divorce to have force and effect in India under the principle of international comity, the divorce judgment should clearly lay out how the court has jurisdiction over the parties and that it is an divorce of the parties' marriage in India. Also, it should probably be coordinated with an attorney in India to ensure its terms are not against public policy there for any property rights located there. In the unpublished case named "In re LEE, E043768 (Court of Appeals of California, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, October 17, 2008), a California court considered a divorce where the parties married in the new country and later again in the old country. Then they obtained a divorce in the old country, and the Court had to decide whether the divorce prevented a later divorce action in the new country. It held that the intent of the divorce in the old country was to apply to just the old country marriage. So, it would be prudent to have your divorce judgment make findings of fact and conclusions of law that will persuade an Indian court that enforcement of the judgment is in accord with their public policy. Cf. LEEM v. ALEEM, 947 A.2d 489 (MD 2008).

Regarding children, India is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. For a case illustrating the problems that can arise, consider what happened in INNES v. CARRASCOSA, 918 A.2d 686 (NJ 2007). It involved an international custody treaty, international comity, ecclesiastical law, civil law, and criminal law, and in the end the New Jersey Court did not abide by the Spanish Court's decision in part because the Spanish Court failed to apply the law of the international convention. So you need to address travel and passport restrictions for any children of the marriage, and the extent that the noncustodial parent will be bonded so funds will be available to recover any child abducted by a parent to India.