GOVERNOR Ralph DLG Torres on Friday signed into law House Bill 22-113, which removes the 10-day restriction in submitting a marriage certificate to the CNMI trial court.
Authored by Rep. John Paul P. Sablan, H.B. 22-113 is now Public Law 22-25. It applies retroactively so any existing marriage certificates are recognized by the CNMI government.
Under 8 CMC § 1204, any person authorized to perform a marriage is required to submit within 10 days a marriage certificate to the clerk of court for marriage registry purposes.
Sablan said due to various circumstances, many marriage certificates were not properly filed in a timely manner or may not have been properly recorded in the court’s marriage registry.
“Cognizant of such missing certificates, it is crucially pertinent to remove such time restrictions to allow for the respective religious/non-religious entity to properly file their marriage certificates with the clerk of court,” the new law stated.
Sablan said the benefits of several individuals who have lost their spouses rely heavily on such record.
H.B. 22-113 states, “Many widowed spouses who were wedded many years ago have experienced great hardship in gaining a copy of their respective marriage certificate from the Commonwealth trial court. Such certificates are necessary for widowed spouses to legally claim the benefits left by their deceased partners, such as land, funds, and so forth.”
Due to the 10-day restriction, widows “have been left in problematic circumstances that have contributed great distress to their well-being. In their time of great loss, it is important to allow widowed spouses to avail [themselves] of benefits yielded by the passing of their deceased spouses.”
John Paul Sablan
