Domicile and other personal connecting factors (Home is where the heart is but does that represent the law?)
Lecture 2: * One of the most important concept of conflicts of law
Significance of domicile * Decides choice of law in areas of personal law such as marriage, status, succession and taxation. * Important in choice of law in many areas, mainly personal law * Often relevance in other statutes as well. Eg. Case of bankruptcy * Certain legal rights are felt to be personal to the individuals, so even though you travel around in the world, it’s like you take the law with you * Eg. domicile in HK and then living couple of years in the US -> your domicile still governs things like marriage, wills <~ * Eg. a party, who domicile in HK, goes to Saudi Arabia for few months->he takes his marriage rule in HK -> he couldn’t take second wife since that’s not recognized in HK law, the law of his domicile * Eg. if bringing a divorce petition in HK -> you have to be domiciled in HK
Domicile Ordinance 2008 * Lex fori applies its own rules on domicile to determine where a person is domiciled. * Technical term person whose domicile is at issue is referred to as the propositus * Ordinance significantly changes the law on domicile in Hong Kong. * To understand it need to know the old law first * HK is actually ahead of England in this area; HK rules on domicile has significantly changed because of Domicile Ordinance 2008 * Under the common law, there’s a situation that someone is domiciled in one country where he/she has never visited and will never go to. So, there has to be better connection between a person and his/her domicile * Problem here: you can’t really understand the ordinance unless you understand the old law * ***possible exam question might be laws as in today or comparison between old and new law in this particular matter * Issue of Domicile is decided