Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), Cann. 1671–1707

What the canon is doing. Marking the boundary line. The ecclesiastical tribunal has exclusive proper-right jurisdiction over the question of the canonical validity of the marriage of a baptized person — that is the question of whether, at the moment of consent, a valid marriage came into being. Anything downstream of that (custody, division of property, civil divorce) belongs to the secular court. The tribunal is not a divorce court with incense; it answers a different question.

What it means for you. If you have not yet obtained a civil divorce, the tribunal will normally want it in hand before the case proceeds (this is a particular-law expectation, not a universal-law requirement). The civil court decides whether the civil marriage is dissolved; the tribunal decides, on different grounds and by a different standard, whether a valid marriage bond ever existed.

What changed in 2015. After 2015, can. 1672 names three titles of competence — the place of the wedding; the domicile or quasi-domicile of either spouse; the place where most proofs must be collected — and the petitioner chooses among them.

What it means for you. Three practical options in most cases: the diocese where the wedding happened, your diocese, or your former spouse's diocese. The third title (where most proofs must be collected) is more rarely invoked. If you have flexibility, the petitioner-friendly choice is usually your own diocese — the proofs (your testimony, your witnesses) are largely there, and the tribunal's intake calendar is easier to navigate when you live in the territory.

The headline. The diocesan bishop is the judge in every nullity case in his diocese. He can exercise that power personally or through others (can. 1673 §1); the tribunal is how he ordinarily does so. The norm is a college of three judges, presided over by a cleric; the other two may be lay persons (can. 1673 §3). Where a college cannot be formed, the bishop moderator entrusts cases to a sole clerical judge who, where possible, uses two assessors of upright life, experts in juridical or human sciences (§4).

What it means for you. The judge who will sign your sentence is, by canon, the bishop himself or a judge of his tribunal. If you receive a letter signed by the judicial vicar, that is not a substitute: the judicial vicar holds ordinary power and forms one tribunal with the bishop (can. 1420). The composition of the tribunal (three-judge college vs. sole judge) does not change the law applied, but it can affect the time-to-sentence: a college must deliberate, a sole judge does not.

What the canon says. Either spouse may petition, whether or not the other agrees. The promoter of justice may also do so when the nullity has already become public and the marriage cannot or should not be convalidated. A marriage not challenged while both spouses lived cannot be challenged after the death of either, unless the question of its validity must first be settled to resolve another dispute, in the canonical or the civil forum (§2).

The gateway. This canon is new with Mitis Iudex. The judge must be informed, before he accepts the case, that the marriage is irreparably ended. The Church has not opened a process to test the strength of a difficult-but-living marriage; the process is for the marriage that has, in fact, ended, and where the canonical question is whether a valid marriage bond ever existed.

What it means for you. A civil divorce, or a juridical separation that is functionally final, is normally what the tribunal looks to as evidence of this irreparability. If you are still in the home, still in active reconciliation, still in counseling pointed at restoration — the tribunal will (rightly) ask you to finish that work first.

The fork in the road. After the fifteen-day window for responses (§1) and after hearing the defender of the bond, the judicial vicar issues a single decree that does three things at once: it fixes the dubium (the precise nullity question to be adjudicated, named by canon), it routes the case to either the ordinary process or the briefer process, and it constitutes the judges. This decree is the procedural spine of everything that follows.

How long. The law directs judges and tribunals, without prejudice to justice, to finish every case as soon as possible: no longer than a year in a first-instance tribunal and six months in a second-instance tribunal (can. 1453; Dignitas Connubii Art. 72). It is a norm, not a guarantee; if your case stalls, ask the judicial vicar in writing where it stands.

What it means for you. Read the decree of joinder twice. The grounds named in §5 are the only grounds the tribunal will adjudicate. If you believe an additional ground applies — for example, the decree names lack of due discretion (can. 1095, 2°) but you also believe simulation (can. 1101, §2) applies — you can request an amendment, but the natural moment to raise that is now, not at publication of the acts.

What this canon protects. The defender of the bond — the canonical office whose structural role is to argue, in good faith, for the validity of the marriage (can. 1432) — and the advocates have a right to be present when witnesses are interrogated. The parties themselves do not. This is the canonical equivalent of the rule against witness coordination: the tribunal wants the witness's recollection, not the petitioner's framing of it.

What it means for you. When you submit a witness list, the tribunal will contact each witness independently and interview them out of your presence. Do not call your witnesses ahead of time to coordinate testimony. Do call them to let them know they will be contacted, what the tribunal will ask in general (their honest recollection of you, of your former spouse, of the courtship and the wedding), and that they should tell the truth as they remember it.

What §1 changed in 2015. The petitioner's own testimony, supported by witnesses of credibility, can have the value of full proof. Before Mitis Iudex, this was discouraged in practice (the so-called "credibility witnesses" rule was applied narrowly). After 2015, Pope Francis explicitly reframed: your own honest declaration of what happened in the marriage is real evidence, evaluated by the judge against the whole record.

On the psychological expert (§3). If the alleged ground touches lack of due discretion of judgment (can. 1095, 2°) or incapacity to assume the essential obligations (can. 1095, 3°) — the two most-common can. 1095 grounds — the judge will normally appoint an expert. If the tribunal requests an expert evaluation, ask your advocate how the expert’s role works in your case.

The most consequential change of the 2015 reform. Before Mitis Iudex, every affirmative first-instance sentence had to be confirmed by an appellate tribunal before it became executive. After 2015, no automatic confirmation. The affirmative sentence is executive as soon as the appeal term (fifteen useful days from notification, per can. 1630 §1) lapses without anyone — petitioner, respondent, or defender of the bond — filing an appeal.

What it means for you. If the sentence is affirmative and no appeal is filed, once those terms have passed you are free to enter a new marriage in the Church, unless a prohibition (vetitum) is attached to the sentence or imposed by the local ordinary (can. 1682 §1). If an appeal is filed, the executive force is suspended until the appellate tribunal rules.

What §1 says. The party who considers himself aggrieved, the promoter of justice and the defender of the bond may each bring a complaint of nullity against the sentence or appeal it (cann. 1619–1640). An affirmative sentence no longer goes up automatically, but each of them keeps the right to appeal.

What §2 does. The appellate tribunal can confirm the lower court's sentence by decree alone — without re-instructing the case — if the appeal is "merely dilatory" (filed only to delay the executive force, not to raise substantive issues). This was a deliberate Mitis Iudex safety valve against weaponized appeals.

What §4 does. If the appeal admits the case to the merits, a new ground of nullity can be alleged for the first time at the appellate level. This is rare in practice but legally available — useful in cases where, for example, instruction at first instance revealed psychological evidence that suggested a can. 1095, 3° ground in addition to the originally-pleaded can. 1095, 2°.

What this canon created. The briefer process (processus brevior) is wholly new in 2015. It is reserved to the diocesan bishop personally — he, not his judicial vicar, must sign the sentence — and it applies only when both spouses petition jointly (or one with the other's consent) and the facts, backed by testimonies and records, render the nullity manifest without the need for a more accurate inquiry (can. 1683, 2°).

What it means for you. If your former spouse is willing to join the petition, and the grounds are documentarily clean (e.g., simulation that can be proved from contemporaneous correspondence; a prior bond proved beyond dispute by a document can go to the documentary process instead, can. 1688), ask your tribunal at intake whether the briefer process is available. If it is, the case can close sooner. If it is not, the ordinary process applies and the more thorough instruction is what your case needs anyway.

Where the sentence can go. The bishop himself reaches moral certitude or, if he does not, the case is rolled into the ordinary process and starts the instruction phase from there — the work already done is preserved. Appeal against the bishop’s sentence goes to the metropolitan or to the Roman Rota; if the metropolitan himself gave the sentence, the appeal goes to the senior suffragan (can. 1687 §3). An appeal that clearly appears merely dilatory is rejected at the outset by decree; an admitted appeal goes to the ordinary process at second instance (§4).

The narrow doorway. The documentary process applies only when a single document — a baptismal record showing the prior marriage was never annulled, a record showing a Catholic married before a civil official or a non-Catholic minister without a dispensation from canonical form, a proof that the proxy at the wedding had no valid mandate — settles the question on its face. No witnesses. No psychological expert. The judge reads the document and rules.

What it means for you. Most petitioners do not have a documentary case. If yours is one (impediment of prior bond, defect of canonical form, defective proxy), the tribunal will tell you at intake.

§1 is the pastoral signature of every nullity sentence. Even when the bond is canonically declared null, the tribunal admonishes the parties of their continuing moral obligations to each other and to the children of the union — support, education, presence. A declaration of nullity does not erase paternity, maternity, or the duties that follow.

This is not nullity. A dispensation super rato et non consummato is a different canonical act from a declaration of nullity. It presumes a valid marriage was contracted but never sexually consummated, and it asks the Roman Pontiff (only the Apostolic See can grant this) to dissolve the bond. The case is gathered at the diocesan level and forwarded to Rome with the bishop's votum.

What it means for you. If your marriage was canonically valid but was never consummated — a small fraction of cases, but real — this is the canonical road, not the nullity road. The Companion does not treat this path in detail because it is rare and tribunal-specific; ask your judicial vicar's office directly.

The edge case. Canon 1707 governs the rare situation in which a spouse has disappeared, no death certificate exists, and the remaining spouse needs canonical clearance to remarry. Mere absence — even years of it — is not enough; the bishop must reach moral certainty of death from other evidence. The Companion includes this canon for completeness, not because most petitioners will encounter it.