Salerno is already married but doesn’t know it: he discovers it while preparing the (real) wedding

He was already married, but he didn’t know it. A 39-year-old from Pastena, in the province of Salerno, just as he was collecting the documents to marry his partner two years ago, discovered that he had a Dominican wife, whom he would marry in Santo Domingo on 10 July 2014, as evidenced by the extract of the marriage certificate issued by the registrar of the Municipality of Salerno. The deeds report – as reported by lacittadisalerno.it – that, at the time, the request for marriage transcription had arrived directly from the Italian Embassy in Santo Domingo.

That the wedding is fake is demonstrated by the fact that the man, on 10 July eight years ago, was not in Santo Domingo: the passport speaks for itself. In the past, however, the 39-year-old had visited the Caribbean city: probably his documents were forged right then.

Meanwhile, his Dominican wife lives in Italy, in Legnano, in the province of Milan. The man filed a complaint with the Police Headquarters and the woman was entered in the register of suspects: the crime hypotheses were impersonation and false ideology. However, the case was closed. A few months later, the 39-year-old, assisted by the lawyer Assunta Mutalipassi, resubmitted the complaint: «I urgently need to cancel this never celebrated marriage. It is clear from my passport that at that time I was absolutely not in the Dominican Republic but in Italy. Everything was done falsely: even the affixing of my fake signature». And again: «The Municipality of Salerno asks me to present the judge’s assessment for the purpose of cancellation in order to be able to marry my partner peacefully». The deputy prosecutor also asked for the proceedings to be archived, «because the fact was consummated must have been prescribed and there are not even the conditions for a reopening of the investigation. The hypothetical falsehood will eventually have to be ascertained in a civil court».

At this point, the man from Salerno proposed the annulment of the marriage to the First Civil Section of the Court of Salerno. The judge, however, has already established ex officio the inadmissibility of the appeal, “since it cannot be qualified as a contentious divorce”. Nor “as a request for marriage annulment pursuant to article 122 of the Civil Code (which allows marriage to be canceled due to violence or error, editor’s note) which, in any case, involves the application of the ordinary ritual of recognition”, when it is up to the judge to ascertain the facts and apply the rules to resolve a dispute with the defendant. And then “if the request for annulment pertains to the formation of the marriage deed, the application must be presented in the country in which the deed was formed”. So, in Santo Domingo. In the past weeks, the application was deemed “inadmissible”. And, for now, the fiancée cannot marry Giuseppe, who according to the law is already married.

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