Poland's conservative president vetoes a law that would have allowed for a faster divorce for childless couples: “Marriage is not a test”
Polish conservative President Karol Nawrocki used his presidential veto right on Thursday to reject a legislative reform already approved by parliament and which aimed to simplify divorce for couples without minor children only by carrying out a procedure at the Civil Status Office, the argument of the initiators of the normative act being that of avoiding lengthy legal processes, reports the EFE news agency, quoted by Agerpres.
The law rejected by the president would thus have allowed couples without minor children and no ongoing pregnancy to divorce directly in front of the head of the Civil Status Office.
In a video published on his official website and on the X social network, President Karol Nawrocki motivated his decision to reject this law, which he described as “socially harmful”. Thus, the head of state mentioned that he decided on the basis of the “constitutional protection of marriage” and emphasized that, in the face of the serious demographic crisis that Poland is going through, the state must support the stability of the family, not create regulations that turn marriage into a “trial union”.
In response, liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the president of resorting to “a reckless veto”, the head of government citing as an argument that the new law “could have helped those who made this decision (to divorce) peacefully, reasonably and calmly”.
In 2024, approximately 57,400 divorces were registered in Poland, of which approximately 40% were of childless couples.
