Dismissal of the public prosecutor's appeal to impose a ban on remarriage

Facts

By judgment of 29 May 1986, the Civil Court of the District of Yverdon granted the divorce of spouses X. and ratified the agreement between the parties to liquidate the matrimonial regime. The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Canton of Vaud appealed against this judgment to the Appeals Chamber of the Vaud Cantonal Court, requesting that a two-year ban on remarriage be imposed on the woman. By judgment of 4 December 1986, the Appeals Chamber dismissed the appeal and confirmed the contested judgment. The Vaud Public Prosecutor's Office then appealed to the Federal Tribunal, repeating the conclusions it had made before the cantonal court of second instance.

Considerations

The Federal Tribunal ruled that the Public Prosecutor's Office did not have standing to appeal. According to case law, the intervening party to whom Art. 53 of the Judicial Organisation Act (OJ) grants the right to appeal is an accessory intervening party, who supports the conclusions of one of the parties, and not a principal intervening party. In the present case, the Public Prosecutor's Office has taken its own conclusions, seeking to have the wife subject to a ban on remarriage, which is incompatible with the status of an accessory intervening party.

Furthermore, the ban on…