Matrimonio concordatario, nullità e prolungata convivenza. Verso il ridimensionamento di una regola preterlegale

[Autom. eng. transl.] The contribution examines the ruling of the Cassation n. 17910/2022, with which for the first time the Supreme Court, meritoriously, reviews the absoluteness of the rule of indelibability of ecclesiastical sentences of marriage nullity for the case of three-year cohabitation following the celebration, enunciated by the joint Sections in 2014. This rule it had been elaborated as a reaction to the opportunistic exploitation of the patrimonial consequences of nullity in marriages that had entered into crisis after a long time, but it turned out to be anything but systematically flawless. This rule is now excluded with regard to canonical invalidities corresponding to those which in civil law are incurable, or can be remedied on the basis of a consolidated coexistence starting from the discovery or cessation of the disabling vice. The note, after having critically illustrated the question, inserts it into the broader theme of the insufficient protection of the economically weaker spouse in the event of disability following a lasting communion of life. The attempt focused on a limited equalization of the effects of the invalidity that occurred years later to those of divorce is preferred to the attempt to find a solution through the exclusion of the declaration of nullity in the event of protracted cohabitation.