This case has been cited 2 times or more.
|
2015-07-15 |
SERENO, C.J. |
||||
| Therefore, the marriage of petitioner and Santos would have been exempted from a marriage license had they cohabited exclusively as husband and wife for at least five years before their marriage.[31] | |||||
|
2013-04-02 |
PER CURIAM |
||||
| The judges' gross ignorance of the law is also evident when they solemnized marriages under Article 34 of the Family Code without the required qualifications and with the existence of legal impediments such as minority of a party. Marriages of exceptional character such as those made under Article 34 are, doubtless, the exceptions to the rule on the indispensability of the formal requisite of a marriage license.[126] Under the rules of statutory construction, exceptions as a general rule should be strictly but reasonably construed.[127] The affidavits of cohabitation should not be issued and accepted pro forma particularly in view of the settled rulings of the Court on this matter. The five-year period of cohabitation should be one of a perfect union valid under the law but rendered imperfect only by the absence of the marriage contract.[128] The parties should have been capacitated to marry each other during the entire period and not only at the time of the marriage.[129] | |||||