When dealing with Divorce Act ISO, you will hear the words ‘jurisdiction’ and ‘reciprocating jurisdiction’.
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Jurisdiction: when a court has jurisdiction, this means that they have the right to deal with the particular application being filed. Jurisdiction also means the geographic area over which a court has legal authority.
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Reciprocating jurisdiction: These are jurisdictions which have agreed to use the ISO Act. For the majority of Divorce Act ISO applications, the reciprocating jurisdictions are only the provinces and territories within Canada (not outside of Canada), but there are reciprocating jurisdictions outside of Canada (e.g. countries) for incoming Divorce Act ISO applications (see next section for more details).