Commonwealth Numbered Acts

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT ACT 1985 No. 7, 1985 - SECT 25

25. (1) Section 90 of the Principal Act is repealed and the following section
is substituted: Legitimacy of children of certain foreign marriages

"90. (1) Where-

   (a)  the parents of a child born illegitimate have married each other or
        the parents of a child born in a place the law of which did not
        recognize the status of illegitimacy have married each other;

   (b)  the marriage took place outside Australia;

   (c)  neither parent of the child was domiciled in Australia at the time of
        the marriage; and

   (d)  the law of the place where a parent of the child was then domiciled
        did not recognize the status of illegitimacy or, if the law of the
        place where a parent of the child was then domiciled did recognize
        that status, the child was, by that law, legitimated by virtue of the
        marriage, the child is for all purposes the legitimate child of his or
        her parents as from the time of the marriage or the commencement of
        section 25 of the Marriage Amendment Act 1985, whichever was the
        later.

"(2) Where the relationship of a child and his or her father and mother is,
for the purposes of the law of a place, required by a law in force in that
place to be determined irrespective of whether or not the father and mother
are or have been married to each other, the law of that place shall, for the
purposes of this section, be taken not to recognize the status of
illegitimacy.

"(3) Sub-section (1) applies in relation to a child-

   (a)  whether the child was born before or after the commencement of section
        25 of the Marriage Amendment Act 1985, whether the marriage of the
        parents of the child took place before or after that commencement and
        whether or not the child was still living at the time of the marriage
        or, in the case of a child born before that commencement, at that
        commencement; and

   (b)  in the case of a child born illegitimate who, by virtue of the
        marriage of the child's parents, was legitimated by the law of the
        place where a parent of the child was domiciled at the time of the
        marriage-whether or not the law of the place in which that parent or
        the other parent was domiciled at the time of the birth of the child
        permitted or recognized legitimation by subsequent marriage.".

(2) The repeal effected by sub-section (1) does not render ineffective any
legitimation effected before the commencement of this section by section 90 of
the Marriage Act 1961 as in force, or as amended and in force, at any time
before that commencement, and section 90 of that Act as in force immediately
before that commencement continues to operate in relation to such a
legitimation.