BEWARE, new rules may need extra advise before getting married in the Philippines. Before you had to either obtain a CNI from UK Registry Office (21 day notice) or become a Philippines resident (7 days) then post your notice in the British Embassy to obtain your CNI. This has now been replaced by Affidavit/Affirmation which is accepted in The Philippines to get a marriage licence & get married, but here is the strange bit below: "An affidavit/affirmation does not make your proposed marriage valid under UK or foreign law" So does this mean although you are legally married in the Philippines, it is not recognised here in the UK and if so she is not your Wife/Spouse and so cannot apply for a Spouse Visa. The UK Government are playing every dirty trick in the book to get their statistics down before next General Election in May 2015 I would be interested to know what that line means, but we are already married and waiting our outcome? Visa processing stats jump around, and to make matters worse all the British Consulates around the world are helping UK Gov with their passport backlog, so this might delay our application even longer, who knows?
Ouch. Not what some people want to hear. Well spotted. "An affidavit/affirmation does not make your proposed marriage valid under UK or foreign law, or guarantee to the local authorities that you are free to marry. You may wish to seek legal advice about the validity of your Philippine marriage in the United Kingdom. Consular staff are not legally trained; thus, they are unable to comment on this matter. "
'...does not make the proposed marriage legal...' The way I read it it is just some legal ass covering. They're just saying the affidavit means as far as philippine s is concerned then you can marry if you want but they hold no legal responsibility for any of the declarations on the affidavit, ie if you lie on it then it might invalidate the marriage if anyone bothers to check. If all your declarations are in order then I don't see the problem
Would be interesting to see the wording of the same document before the change to affidavit, I'm sure it said the same thing (I hope!)
I would imagine that the doubt over this paragraph of the new form alludes more to the veracity of the affirmation, in that the groom is giving his word that he is free to marry. In the limited time available, carrying out an international search of BDM records would be impossible, and so there would be an element of acceptance of the truthfulness of the declaration that one is free to be married. Clearly, someone who would lie in order to be married would not, on further investigation be allowed a legal status to his marriage, hence the paragraph. I suggest that the rest of us have no reason to be concerned, as long as a clanking skeleton doesn't fall out of the closet during inspection.
No clanking skeleton in my closet, I waited 18 months for the divorce and then another 3 weeks for the CNI just to be sure!!
