Shengen Spouse Visa Extension or Conversion

Question

I came from South Africa on an Italian spouse visa. I arrived on 8 June and the visa is valid for 90 days. I now wish to extend it. My wife is Italian and has residency in Italy and Carta di Identita.

We did not transcribe the marriage at the Consulate in Johannesburg. She had been married previously but had not declared that marriage to the consulate. When we wanted to transcribe our marriage, the Consulate told her she must first declare the first marriage and the divorce, and then transcribe the current marriage.

Unfortunately, she had problems obtaining the previous marriage certificate. She could not remember the date of the marriage and, since the person had remarried and then passed away, South African Home Affairs had no record of her marriage details. She was told that her marriage had been overwritten by the system. She does have the divorce decree.

Consequently, she decided to approach the Divorce Court hoping to obtain a copy of the divotce records. Again, the Department of Justice had a problem in releasing the documents, as they had contracted an independent company for storage and had issues retrieving the files.

We are in possession of our apostilled marriage certificate. Will that suffice or will the Italian authority ask again for documents relating to the previous marriage? The unabridged marriage certificate shows that she was previously divorced.

Answer 1

In addition to my initial question: The apostilled certificate has been translated and then stamped by a local magistrate court. Subsequently we have visited the Questura and the URP Office has accepted it and gave an appointment for 21th November for the Permesso di Soggiorno. Then we handed the apostilled and translated marriage certificate at our local 'Comune' to have the marriage transcribed. They heard the explanation we gave to them for not having transcribed it at the Italian Cosulate in Jhb and the officials were very helpful and agreed to do the transcription. So basically either the consulate in Jhb was being difficult when they required all the additional documentation pertaining to the my wife's first marriage in order for our marriage to be transcribed or perhaps they were indeed applying the burocracy to a T because the fault was of the italian citizen (my wife) for not having transcribed her first marriage and by doing so, having created this delay.

''Il matrimonio contratto all'estero, secondo le forme del luogo, ha efficiacia in Italia (art. 115 CC) e il cittadino italiano che contragga matrimonio all'estero ha l'obbligo di provvedere - senza indugio - a far pervenire copia dell'atto di matrimonio, legalizzata e, distintamente, tradotta in forma ufficiale, all'autorita' diplomatica/consolare italiana nel luogo di celebrazione, ai fini delle prescritte registrazioni (= trascrizione) in Italia (art. 16 dPR 3/11/2000, n. 396).''