O dwóch krakowskich przedwojennych procesach separacyjnych

The paper is based on the search query as made in the State Archives in Cracow, and specifically on the analysis of files of the Cracow Circuit Court covering the years 1918–1945. In both discussed trials whose objective was the separation of spouses these were the husbands who filed the application. They were Catholics with the University educational background and both were the sons of the professors of law the inter-war period. In the first case, supplied with the court reference no.: SOKC 4334 (Cg XI f 713/21) it took the trial almost three years and a half (from 31 May 1921 until 17 September 1924) to be ended, the case being examined in the three instances. The Cracow Circuit Court, after 6 hearing sessions, dismissed the application for the separation. The Appellate Court upheld this decision while the Supreme Court in which the motion for the revision was lodged unexpectedly found the decision justified and adjudicated on the separation of spouses on the basis of the fault that it attributed to both parties.The files of the second trial were supplied with the reference no.: SOKC 797 (I C 1323/34). It took the trial 17 months (from 8 November 1934 until 21 April 1936) to end, after four hearing sessions. The decision amounted to the suspension of legal proceedings. For 3 years that followed the parties did not apply for the resuming of the proceedings. As a result the Cracow Circuit Court issued, on the 18th of March 1941, the “On Behalf of the Law” decision on the discontinuance of the suspended proceedings for the separation, thereby fulfilling the requirement of legalism. These proceedings could be classified among those that were most time consuming, the case being tried in one instance. In view of the fact that divorces were not admitted on the basis of the ABGB, the separation trials as instituted by Catholic spouses in Polonia Minora region were decidedly the most frequent method that was applied to deal with difficult matrimonial issues by married couples