Divorzi diversi e geografia giuridica interculturale. Il “termine” mobile del matrimonio

This essay addresses a Judgment of Divorce ruled by an Italian court (Tribunale di Padova) applying Moroccan family law—specifically, Moudawwana Articles 83 and 114. By means of a renvoi to EU Regulation n. 1259/2010, the spouses’ application for divorce benefitted from the so-called “immediate divorce” provision, namely a divorce without a prior one-year or six-month period of separation as required, instead, by Italian law n. 898/1920 (later modified by law n. 55/2015). The above judicial decision is distinct from other similar previous judgments because it includes statements concerning the economic terms of this kind of divorce, here determined according to Moroccan family law. Nonetheless—as I will attempt to demonstrate—the renvoi to Moroccan law is for the most part merely nominal because it lacks any proficient and thoughtful effort toward an intercultural translation/transaction of the spouses’ claims, or of the overall situation.
This case-law analysis intends to show the close connection between an intercultural use of law and the remolding of legal spatialities, both of which stem from people’s transnational mobility and the globalization of communication processes. By combining intercultural law and legal geography methodologies (understood here as legal chorology), this essay aims to bring to the surface the semantic-spatial (precisely, chorological) continuum underlying the situations that increasingly haunt the courts and the work of lawyers in the field, compelling them to come to terms with cultural and religious plurality. Particular attention will be given to the ubiquitous implications of religious belonging. All the theoretical and methodological outcomes of this inquiry are centered on addressing practical issues. To this end, I will try to show how the inclusion of an interculturally-informed methodology in legal interpretation and decision processes can open up different solutions for the regulation and fulfillment of individual interests.