Canberra: A same-sex Australian couple stuck in a “legal limbo” was now finally being allowed to divorce, the media reported on Monday.
Lawyers for the Perth woman filled out divorce papers on Sunday, a day after same-sex marriage became legal in Australia, reports the BBC.
The pair had married in an European nation’s consulate in Australia in 2015.
When they later separated, the couple found themselves in a “legal limbo” of being unable to divorce in either nation, barrister Teresa Farmer said.
“They were just stuck. (My client) was very much inextricably linked to this person and couldn’t do anything about it,” Farmer told the BBC.
“Unless something changed in Australia, or in the overseas jurisdiction, she wasn’t going to be able to move on.”
The women could not divorce because they were not residents of the country that married them, Farmer said.
The marriage was immediately recognised when Australia’s new laws became official, after MPs overwhelmingly voted for the change last week.
Farmer said her client immediately lodged an application for divorce, received by a court on Monday.
It was possibly the first application for a same-sex divorce in Australia, she told the BBC.(IANS)
