EN
The scientific reflection on a thorough reform of the divorce law is justified by the growing social need to saturate divorce with private autonomy and to abandon full institutionalization. The changes consist in the introduction of divorce with the participation of a notary. In the first place, such a regulation was adopted by Eastern European countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia). The idea of notarial divorce also flourished in Western and Southern Europe. A comparative law analysis shows the diversity of the position in which a notary appears in proceedings leading to an out-of-court divorce. The paper rejects the French variant of the dissolution of marriage. The author considers three ways of shaping a divorce with the participation of a notary. Divorce could be based on a contract (the model of a legal act), an act of official authority entrusted to a notary (a model similar to a court decision) or - depending on the grounds for dissolution of marriage - on heterogeneous legal events (dualistic model).