Page:Civil Union Act 2006 from Government Gazette.djvu/5



Time and place for and presence of parties and witnesses at solemnisation and registration of civil union

10. (1) A marriage officer may solemnise and register a civil union at any time on any day of the week, but is not obliged to solemnise a civil union at any other time than between the hours of eight in the morning and four in the afternoon.

(2) A marriage officer must solemnise and register a civil union in a public office or private dwelling-house or on the premises used for such purposes by the marriage officer, with open doors and in the presence of the parties themselves and at least two competent witnesses, but the foregoing provisions of this subsection do not prohibit a marriage officer to solemnise a civil union in any place other than a place mentioned herein, if the civil union must be solemnised in such other place by reason of the serious or longstanding illness of, or serious bodily injury to, one or both of the parties.

(3) No person is competent to enter into a civil union through any other person acting as his or her representative.

Formula for solemnisation of marriage or civil partnership

11. (1) A marriage officer must inquire from the parties appearing before him or her whether their civil union should be known as a marriage or a civil partnership and must thereupon proceed by solemnising the civil union in accordance with the provisions of this section.

(2) In solemnising any civil union. the marriage officer must put the following questions to each of the parties separately, and each of the parties must reply thereto in the affirmative: “Do you, A.B., declare that as far as you know there is no lawful impediment to your proposed marriage/civil partnership with C.D. here present, and that you call all here present to witness that you take C.D. as your lawful spouse/civil partner?”, and thereupon the parties must give each other the right hand and the marriage officer concerned must declare the marriage or civil partnership, as the case may be, solemnised in the following words: “I declare that A.B. and C.D. here present have been lawfully joined in a marriage/civil partnership.”.

(3) If the provisions of this section relating to the questions to be put to each of the parties separately or to the declaration whereby the marriage or civil partnership shall be declared to be solemnised, or to the requirement that the parties must give each other the right hand, have not been strictly complied with owing to―

an error, omission or oversight committed in good faith by the marriage officer; an error, omission or oversight committed in good faith by the parties; or the physical disability of one or both of the parties,

and such civil union has in every other respect been solemnised in accordance with the provisions of this Act, that civil union shall, provided there was no other lawful impediment thereto, be valid and binding.

Registration of civil union

12. (1) The prospective civil union partners must individually and in writing declare their willingness to enter into the civil union with one another by signing the prescribed document in the presence of two witnesses.

(2) The marriage officer and the two witnesses must sign the prescribed document to certify that the declaration made in terms of section 11(2) was made in their presence.

(3) The marriage officer must issue the partners to the civil union with a registration certificate stating that they have, under this Act, entered into a marriage or a civil partnership, depending on the decision made by the parties in terms of section 11(1).

(4) The certificate contemplated in subsection (3) is prima facie proof that a valid civil union exists between the partners referred to in the certificate.