Domestic and intimate partner violence involves abuse by current or former partners or family members. Legal resources focus on protective orders, criminal sanctions, shelter provisions, and the rights of survivors within family law and criminal justice systems.
Article 309-2 classifies domestic or intrafamily violence as any conduct that employs physical force, psychological or verbal violence, intimidation or persecution against family members, spouse, ex-spouse, consensual partner, someone with whom the perpetrator cohabitates, or the parent of the perpetrator’s child.
Article 309-3 establishes a prison sentence of five to ten years for violent acts against women or family, if any of the following conditions are true:
The perpetrator broke into the victim’s home;
The perpetrator caused grave bodily harm to victim;
The perpetrator carried a weapon without intention to kill or mutilate;
Plaintiff and Defendant were married in 1998 but entered into a separation agreement in 2007. Plaintiff and Defendant were living together. They were discussing work that needed to be done around the house when defendant husband requested that the wife look at the door sweep. The wife bent down to look and subsequently could not recall anything that took place until she woke up around 3:00 am and found herself in bed with a “terrible headache” and extreme nausea. Defendant told her that she had had a seizure and had hit her head. She went to the hospital.
This law defines “customary marriage” as the marriage between a man and a woman performed according to the tribal tradition of their locality and provides that a wife’s rights and duties within a customary marriage are the same as a wife’s rights and duties in a statutory marriage (a statutory marriage is a civil marriage license under the Domestic Relations Law). §2.1 provides that all customary marriages are legal, and the duties and liabilities of the statutory wife shall be accorded to all customary wives.
Article 11(B) of the Evidence Act provides special protections for vulnerable witnesses when testifying in criminal proceedings. Vulnerable witnesses are defined as individuals under 16 years of age, persons with intellectual disabilities, victims of sexual offenses, or others deemed disadvantaged. These protections are intended to preserve the dignity of such witnesses and prevent intimidation during testimony.
In Exp. No. 03378-2019-PA/TC, the petitioner sought to annul a family court decision, upheld on appeal, which granted protective measures to the petitioner’s partner after she accused him of committing psychological violence against her. The Constitutional Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) explained that the petitioner’s fundamental rights to be heard and to defend himself were not absolute but were limited by the victim’s right to live a life free of violence.
The appellant and respondent are divorced parents of three children. At the time of the divorce, custody of the children was awarded to the respondent. The appellant then moved for an interim protection order, claiming that the respondent physically abused their minor children. A court granted the interim protection order on October 3, 2011, and awarded the appellant interim custody of the children, subject to visitation by the respondent, and ordered respondent to cease abusing the children.
The Samoa Family Court Act 2014 ("The Act") establishes the Family Court as a division of the District Court and confers jurisdiction to hear and determine matters under key family laws, including the Infants Ordinance 1961, Family Safety Act 2013,
The Family Law Act (the Act) applies across the whole of Australia and introduced two major reforms when it came into effect in 1976:
The Family Safety Act 2013 addresses domestic violence and related matters within domestic relationships, including current or former partners (whether legally, customarily, or religiously married), cohabitants, persons with shared children, and relatives by blood or marriage in Samoa.
