The Local Government Area Changes Regulations 1976

Marriages: registration of births and deaths

32.—(1) Nothing in the order or in any scheme made in accordance with any provision thereof shall affect the validity of any certificate or licence issued or notice given under the Marriage Act 1949 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act of 1949”) before the appointed day. A marriage solemnised on or after that day in any registration district altered or established in consequence of the order on the authority of such a certificate or licence shall not be void, and a person solemnising a marriage in accordance with paragraph (2)(b)(iii) shall not be guilty of an offence under section 75 of the Act of 1949, by reason of the fact that the marriage is solemnised in an office other than that specified in the notice of marriage or certificate.

(2) Where notice of marriage is given before the appointed day to any superintendent registrar whose district will be altered or abolished on that day, and the marriage has not been solemnised before that day, the following provisions shall apply—

(a) Where the district is altered, the provisions of the Act of 1949 with regard to the issue of a certificate or a certificate and licence shall apply as if the alteration had not taken place;

(b) Where the district is abolished, the notice shall have effect as if it had been given to the superintendent registrar designated by the Registrar General for the purposes of section 15(1) of the Registration Service Act 1953 as the successor to the superintendent registrar whose district is abolished (which successor is hereinafter referred to as “the succeeding superintendent registrar”) and—

(i) the succeeding superintendent registrar shall cause any notice or exact copy of the particulars entered in the marriage notice book, required to be displayed under section 31(1) of the Act of 1949, to be affixed in some conspicuous place in his office from the appointed day for any unexpired portion of the period mentioned in the said section 31(1);

(ii) the succeeding superintendent registrar, and any other superintendent registrar so empowered by the Act, of 1949, may, in accordance with the provisions of that Act, issue his certificate or, as the case may be, his certificate and licence for the solemnisation of the marriage notwithstanding that the building in which the marriage is to be solemnised is not within his district or within the district within which one of the persons to be married has resided; and

(iii) the succeeding superintendent registrar may arrange for the solemnisation of the marriage in his office where the persons to be married had stated in the notice that they wished to be married in the office of the superintendent registrar to whom the notice was given.

(3) For the purposes of any notice of marriage to be given on or after the appointed day the alteration or the establishment of any registration district by the order or any scheme made in accordance with any provision thereof shall be deemed to have taken effect 32 days before the appointed day.

(4) The superintendent registrar of any district which will be abolished on the appointed day shall for one month before that day display in a conspicuous position in his office and inform every person giving notice of marriage the name and address of the succeeding superintendent registrar.

(5) Nothing in the order or in any scheme made in accordance with any provision thereof shall prejudice or affect the registration of any building for the solemnisation of marriages under section 41 of the Act of 1949 or the appointment of any person as an authorised person under section 43 of that Act.

(6) Where any birth (including a still-birth) or death occurring in any registration sub-district which is altered or abolished on the appointed day in consequence of the order has not been registered before that day, it shall be registered by the registrar of births and deaths for the sub-district in which is situated on that day the place of birth or death, as the case may be.