Family
Divorce Act with strong statutory succession rules for land
Marriage under the Birth, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, divorce under the Divorce Act, and family violence addressed by the Family Protection Act 2013 with protection orders.
Key rules
- Deadline — Protection orders under the Family Protection Act may be made urgently
- Deadline — Divorce grounds under the Divorce Act remain substantially fault-based
Governing law
- Divorce Act (Cap. 29) (s. 3)
- Family Protection Act 2013
- Maintenance of Illegitimate Children ActCap. 30
- Guardianship ActCap. 31
In practice
The Divorce Act retains fault grounds and has not been modernised into a no-fault regime. The Family Protection Act 2013 was the significant reform, creating police safety orders and court protection orders. What distinguishes Tongan family law from its neighbours is the property consequence: because land cannot be owned or sold, it cannot be divided on divorce in the way a matrimonial home is elsewhere, and succession to allotments follows the statutory line rather than a will or a court's discretion. A widow's rights in her late husband's allotment are governed by the Land Act and are conditional, which has been criticised as discriminatory and is a recurring subject of law-reform debate.