Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing divorce in Thailand, not a topic anybody really wants to discuss but divorce is an issue. One of the issues, or some of the questions that come up especially when we deal with foreigners on the topic of divorce, some of the questions that come up revolve around whether or not Thailand has "fault" divorce or "no fault" divorce. 

Let me preface this further information by saying I gleaned it from talking to Attorneys here in our office. I am an American Attorney; I am the Managing Director of the firm; I am a naturalized Thai citizen; I am not a Thai Attorney so this information is being conveyed for educational, informational purposes only. You should be gaining legal advice from someone on a case by case basis based on your specific circumstances from a legal professional themselves. This is just to provide some basic insight into how the Family Law System here works in Thailand especially with regard to divorce. 

What I would say Thailand has is kind of a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario when it comes to divorce in terms of conflict de-escalation if you will or sort of conflict mitigation. Because Thailand is a Civil Law country, if the divorce is uncontested, both parties just want to be finished, want to dissolve the union and move on, that can be accomplished in a relatively straightforward manner. It basically requires the signatures of both parties at a given Civil Registrar Office, and that is done, that's the formalization process. It doesn't need to go through the Courts, nothing associated with that. 

Now if it is a contested divorce it does sort of go into this mechanism of what we might call in the West, and again this is not an apples to apples comparison necessarily, but there are similarities, it does revert to what I would use the term "fault divorce" in the old system of divorce that we used to use in the Common Law jurisdictions back in the United States specifically insofar as yeah there is actually a matter of showing cause for the divorce, a proceeding has to be had, it has to be adjudicated; cause has to be found to be justified. Then under the laws of Thailand they will go ahead and dissolve the marriage per the law. But again, it's not a matter of "no fault, it in the sense that, again "fault"-"no fault" might not be the most accurate terms but again cause has to be shown for a dissolution. If both parties are not in agreement to dissolve the marriage, then there needs to be a proceeding to determine whether or not the marriage should be dissolved based on the laws of Thailand.

Now again this is all going to work out on a case by case basis based on the circumstances in an underlying case but from a comparative law standpoint if you will, yes I would say Thailand's divorce system in contested divorces is rather similar to in many ways, the "fault" divorce system that was once used in the United States.