At the time of the decision of the divorce, a maintenance relationship shall be established between the former spouses if there are the conditions laid down in Article 60 Code of Family and Care.
Content Article 60 The family and care code shows that:
An innocent spouse in need may require another divorced spouse to provide means of subsistence, which are within the scope of justified needs, and in addition correspond to the income and property opportunities of the obliged spouse.
At this point, it should be stressed what the definition of scarcity is. The only interpretative clue in this respect contains Article 135(1) k.r.o. Its wording shows that scarcity occurs when a certain person cannot fully satisfy his justified needs by his own means.
In accordance with the resolution of the full composition of the Civil and Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court of 16 December 1987 on guidelines for the interpretation of law and judicial practice in alimony cases, ‘The satisfaction of the needs of each individual should be primarily by his own means.
This applies to income from employment, property, social security benefits. (...). It is therefore necessary to consider persons who cannot meet the justified needs by their own forces to be underprivileged without their own resources in the form of remuneration for work, pensions or pensions or income from their own property.’
An institution of deprivation is crucial in ruling alimony in a situation where spouses divorce without a judgment on guilt or are both guilty of distribution of life. In such a case, the Court should always examine whether the spouse is in a state of deprivation and examine the earnings opportunities of the obliged and justified needs of the rightholder.
Furthermore, it should be stressed that taking into account the income and property opportunities of the obliged person means that the court may not take into account the action despite the rightholder's deficiency, if, for example, he is obliged to a disabled person and other obligations on him, e.g. for minors.
An innocent spouse may require only the guilty spouse to provide for his or her livelihood in the event of a material deterioration of his or her situation, and the court may declare that the guilty spouse is solely obliged to contribute to the appropriate extent to meet the justified needs of the innocent spouse, even if he or she is not underprivileged.
In this case, where the decision of divorce is based on the fault of one spouse alone, the legislator introduced the so-called extended maintenance obligation of a spouse who is solely responsible for the distribution of life, which does not depend on whether the innocent spouse suffers deficiency, as only the material deterioration due to the divorce ruling is sufficient.
It is important that ‘to assess whether the condition laid down in Article 60(2) k.r.o.
has been fulfilled, there are no significant changes in the material situation of the innocent spouse during the period between the actual divorce and the decision of the divorce, but it is important to compare every material situation of the innocent spouse with the situation which would have existed if the divorce had not been settled at all and if the spouses had continued their consumption.’ (The Supreme Court ruling of the day 7 January 1969, reference no.
II CR 528/68).
Therefore, according to the resolution of the full composition of the Civil and Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court of 16 December 1987 on guidelines for the interpretation of law and judicial practice in alimony cases: when assessing whether there has been a significant deterioration in the material situation of the innocent spouse referred to in Article 60(2) k.r.o., the material conditions of that spouse should be taken into account, such as if the second spouse had properly fulfilled his obligations and if the spouses had continued their consumption.
The duration of such an obligation is set out in the family and caring code and expires if the spouse enters into a new marriage. However, where the spouse is a divorced spouse who has not been found guilty of the distribution of life, that obligation shall also expire within five years of the decision of the divorce, unless, because of exceptional circumstances, the court, at the request of the rightholder, prolongs that five-year period.
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