A divorce in Georgia is not treated as a private matter between two people, and that is the reason collusion bars one.
The State Has Its Own Interest
In Shelton v. Shelton, 209 Ga. 454 (1953), a case testing whether a spouse’s out-of-state insanity adjudication supported a Georgia divorce, the Georgia Supreme Court put it this way: “Marriage and divorce are matters in which the public is concerned, and the public policy of this State is to foster and protect marriage and requires the closest scrutiny in all cases which affect the severance of the marital relation.”
That interest belongs to the State, not to the spouses, so the spouses cannot waive it or contract it away.
Private Agreement Cannot Supply the Ground
OCGA 19-5-4(a)(1) is where that idea appears in the code. No divorce shall be granted where “[t]he adultery, desertion, cruel treatment, or intoxication complained of was occasioned by the collusion of the parties, with the intention of causing a divorce.”
For example, in Christopher v. Christopher, 198 Ga. 361 (1944), a woman obtained a mail-order Mexican divorce from her first husband – never setting foot in Mexico – at the urging of the man she then married in Georgia. When she later sued that second husband for divorce and alimony, the court held the Mexican decree void and refused to recognize it, because “[t]he public policy of this State can not be circumvented by any action or agreement of individuals.”
So her second husband was allowed to attack the divorce he had helped arrange, and she lost her claim for alimony because she had never been lawfully married to him.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!