Divorce, Caribbean Style

The eight Americans were greeted at Santo Domingo's Las Americas Airport by a smiling host who guided them effortlessly through customs and on to the posh El Embajador Hotel for cocktails and a sumptuous dinner. Next morning the visitors were shuttled to the country's thriving new tourist attraction: the Palace of Justice. By noontime they were divorced from their spouses back home. The cost: about $500 in legal expenses, plus air fare and the price of an overnight stay.

Since a liberalized divorce law went into effect in the Dominican Republic 2 1/2 months ago, 220 Americans have participated in the brisk ritual--and poured more than $36,000 into government coffers in the process. The country's chief Splitsville rival, neighboring Haiti, has been in the foreign divorce business since December, and now records about 100 quickie decrees a month. Both countries are looking for rapid growth of the infant industry.

Heirs to Juarez. The Dominican Republic and Haiti have Mexico to thank for their new source of income. Troubled by the tawdry image of the Ciudad Juarez divorce factory, Mexican federal authorities last year successfully pressed for an end to the practice. Haiti's late dictator, Franc,ois ("Papa Doc") Duvalier, promptly signed a quickie divorce law and the Dominican Republic soon followed suit.

How vulnerable to legal challenge the decrees will be remains an open question. If disputes arise over the validity of new marriages, division of property or other issues, Caribbean divorces may prove shaky. Some state courts in the U.S. do not recognize easy foreign divorces. A notable exception has been New York, where the Court of Appeals upheld a Mexican divorce in 1965. Citing the inflexibility of New York divorce laws at that time, and pointing to the legal chaos that might result from nonrecognition of thousands of quickie divorces, the court said that a balanced public policy required recognition. But Dean Monrad G. Paulsen of the University of Virginia Law School, an expert on domestic relations law, does not think that the public-policy argument holds for the Caribbean laws. First, says Paulsen, divorce laws in the U.S. have been relaxed. Second, the number of Caribbean divorces is still too small to create the confusion that worried the New York Court of Appeals. Warns Paulsen: "Those going to the Caribbean may be engaged in an enterprise that, in a legal sense, is not likely to end their marriage."

Helpful Minister. Such problems have not discouraged pioneers of the Caribbean's divorce trade such as Donald McKay, 49, a chunky ex-paratrooper and graduate of the University of Alabama Law School. McKay prospered for years in El Paso, where he and his partner, Morris ("Red") Bell, arranged flights to Juarez for their clients from all over the U.S. Now Bell works out of Miami, while McKay hangs his shingle in the Port-au-Prince offices of IBO tours, which is owned by the Minister of Interior and National Defense, Luckner Cambronne. The arrangement is more than coincidental. The Haiti statute provides specifically that one travel agency must be in charge of informing the Ministry of Justice of all divorce cases. Not surprisingly, Cambronne's outfit got the nod, and the resulting business.

Santo Domingo was slower getting into the quickie divorce business, primarily because of opposition from the church, feminist groups and the press; President Joaquin Balaguer vetoed the original bill. But once leading legislators were assured of a share of the legal business, the measure was passed in June over Balaguer's veto. Already, Haiti has been forced to reduce its price to compete with its neighbor's figure. The package fee, which varies somewhat depending on the case, is divided among the stateside lawyer, the Caribbean lawyer, and government agencies including the court.

Manuel G. Espinosa, 43, is the resident expert in the Dominican Republic's new divorce business. When word of the change in Mexican divorce law came down, Espinosa, a Mexican lawyer who had plied the Juarez trade for eight years, moved to Santo Domingo and eagerly awaited the chance to do business there. Now Espinosa is director of the city's leading domestic relations firm (otherwise made up exclusively of members of President Balaguer's Reformista Party).

McKay and Espinosa are persuaded that the island can attract even more business than Juarez did at its apogee. What they need, they say, is proper promotion, and the Dominican Republic has already snared its first celebrity. Actor Elliott Gould flashed through the court last month to dissolve his marriage to Barbra Streisand. "I don't want to knock Mexico," says Espinosa, "but the system had become too mechanical." When he leads his flock into the marbled courthouse, Espinosa carefully points out the crucifix in the court signifying, he says, "the presence of God."

The newly unspliced so far seem satisfied. Once they have answered a black-robed magistrate's five questions (name, nationality, address, occupation and consent to be divorced), they have nothing but kind words for the procedure. They do not even mind that the ceremony takes almost a minute--a full 30 seconds longer than the superefficient Juarez procedure. Said one veteran of Juarez: "It was like a cattle run there; here in Santo Domingo it's got class." Those who opt for the Caribbean have one final decision to make: whether to get divorced in French (Haiti) or in Spanish (Dominican Republic).

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