The production of past Marriage and/or Divorce Certificate goes toward confirming that status but also serves to establish your identity.
Each party to a marriage must give their authorised celebrant documents that establish their date/place of birth and identity. In most cases people use the name recorded on their birth certificate, meaning that name will be recorded on all documents they give their authorised celebrant, and in the NOIM.
If a party gives their authorised celebrant documents recording different names, the authorised celebrant should check the party has provided a sufficient chain of documents that both establish their identity and link the names. The case studies below demonstrate such a chain of documents and how to use them.
Under Paragraph 42(1)(c) of the Marriage Act, each party to an intended marriage must also make a declaration before the authorised celebrant as to their conjugal status and belief that there is no legal impediment to the marriage.
The declaration must be in accordance with the approved form, which is available to all authorised celebrants on the Attorney-General’s Department website.
The declarations must be made before the marriage is solemnised. This should occur as close as possible to the ceremony, even if this requires the parties to make a special attendance by the authorised celebrant.
The Marriage Act does not permit the declarations to be made immediately after the ceremony.
It is an offence for an authorised celebrant to solemnise a marriage unless both parties have made their declarations of no legal impediment.
It is also an offence for a party to knowingly give a false declaration.
The conjugal status a party gives in the declaration should be the same as that given in item five of the NOIM unless the party was waiting for their dissolution of marriage to be finalised at the time of signing the NOIM. In that case the conjugal status on the NOIM will be ‘married’ with some reference to the steps that have been or are being taken to dissolve that marriage, and the conjugal status given in the declaration will be ‘divorced’.
Paragraph 3 of the declaration deals with establishing that the party is of marriageable age and the party should be careful to cross out whichever statement is inapplicable. The authorised celebrant should initial the deletion in the margin. Where a party is a minor, his or her date of birth must be given. The authorised celebrant should at this stage, if this has not already been done, check that a section 12 order has been obtained from a court and check that the consent or consents required under sections 13 or 14 of the Marriage Act are adequate and in order (see Part 8.6 of these Guidelines for further information on marriage involving a minor).
If an authorised celebrant has reason to believe that there is a legal impediment to a marriage, or that a marriage would be void, the celebrant should not solemnise or purport to solemnise the marriage. To do so may be an offence. This is the case even if the marrying couple has signed their declaration, but the celebrant has reason to believe that declaration may be false.
thanks to the author for taking his clock time on this one.