The husband had pronounced a talaq in Pakistan, in accordance with the 1961 Muslim Family Ordinance. The question was whether the English court had jurisdiction on the wife’s petition to dissolve the marriage and make consequential orders relating to a house in Wimbledon in which the wife was living with their son and which belonged to the husband, and to make provision for their financial support.
Held: The talaq was to be recognised under the 1971 Act. Consequently there was no subsisting marriage and no power in the English court to make financial provision. If the legislative purpose of a statute is such that a statutory series should be read ejusdem generis, so be it: the rule is helpful. But, if it is not, the rule is more likely to defeat than to fulfil the purpose of the statute. The rule like many other rules of statutory construction, is a useful servant but a bad master.
Lord Diplock said that the framework of compulsory registration, backed by penal sanctions, and the fact that without performance of the Regulations the Talaq did not take effect, amounted to proceedings.
Lord Scarman rejected W’s submission that other proceedings required to be if not judicial at least quasi judicial, advised a more liberal approach, saying that that the Act (and the Convention from which it derived) must be construed broadly so that the proceedings test is met by any act or acts officially recognised as leading to the divorce in the country in which it was obtained and itself recognised by the law of that country as an effective divorce.
Lord Salmon construed the phrase ‘other proceedings’ widely as ‘any proceedings other than judicial proceedings’ provided they were effective, as required by the Act, under the laws of the country in which they were obtained.
Lord Scarman, Lord Fraser, Lord Diplock, Lord Salmon
[1979] 3 All ER 897 HL(E), [1979] 3 WLR 833, [1980] AC 744
Recognition of Divorces and Legal Separations Act 1971
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Bristol Airport Plc and Another v Powdrill and Others CA 21-Dec-1989
An airline company went into administration. The airport seized two airplanes. The administrators claimed they were property within the administration, could not be seized without a court order, and the court should exercise its discretion not to . .
Cited – Regina v Westminster City Council ex parte A, London Borough of Lambeth ex parte X and similar CA 17-Feb-1997
This was an appeal from orders of certiorari quashing the decisions of three local authorities refusing to provide accommodation for the respondents, four asylum seekers, whose applications for asylum were presently being considered by the Secretary . .
Cited – Agbaje v Akinnoye-Agbaje SC 10-Mar-2010
The parties had divorced in Nigeria, but the former wife now sought relief in the UK under section 10 of the 194 Act. The wife said that she lived here, but the order made in Nigeria was severely detrimental requiring her either to live here in . .
Cited – H v S FD 18-Nov-2011
The court was asked whether for the purposes of English divorce and connected proceedings a Talaq pronounced by the respondent husband in Saudi Arabia and placed by Deed of Confirmation before the Sharia Court is entitled to be afforded recognition . .
Cited – Hewitson v Hewitson CA 6-Oct-1994
W (former) had obtained leave ex parte to seek financial relief, and the former H now requested that that leave be set aside. H and W had been divorced in California. W had signed a ante-nuptial agreement. W was now resident here. H argued that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice, Family, International
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.181065
