FOREIGN DIVORCES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 5

FOREIGN DIVORCES.

VICTIMS OF FRAUD. WOMAN OF NO UVN». INTERNATIONAL ANOMALIES. Typical cases of liow people aw victimised by fraudulent foreign divorces obtainable at such places as Reno, Nevada and in Mcxico, were described by K.C.'s at the International Law Association Conference at Oxford. The conference was discussing anomalies of the present state of international divorce law, and approved proposals designed to obtain recognition by nil nations of divorce decrees granted by the competent Court of any civilised country. The proposals will be submitted to the Governments of every nation for adoption throughout the world. One of the leading international lawyears who condemned the Reno and Mexico decrees was Mr. J,. A. Barratt, K.C., a member of the English , and American Bars, who described them as "fly-by-night divorces." "We are all familiar with the great scandal existing in the United States and Mexico," lie said. "Residence is taken up merely for tho purpose of divorce, and the scandal has gone so far in Mexico that some lawyers say it is not even necessary to go there to obtain a decree. "These learned lawyers inform their clients that tho decree is good the world over, but all I can say is that they are definitely not good the world over. Trapped By Lawyers. "I have heard of one case where an Englishman of very small means had been trapped by one of these lawyers and had paid £315 to get a Mexican divorce, which was not worth the paper it was written on." Mr. Barratt also quoted the case of a divorce obtained by a husband in North Dakota. The wife afterwards married a Scotsman, and a child was born which would have been entitled to very substantial estates in Scotland had he been legitimate. The Courts in England, however, held that the 10-years-old divorce was void, as the petitioner's domicile was fraudulent, and the innocent sufferer was the child, who was not therefore entitled to the estates. Ho urged that they should try to obviate the illegitimacy of children which occurred when people obtained a bona fide divorce in one country and then became domiciled in another, only to fiud that the decree was not recognised there. Mr. Maurice Alexander, K.C., gave as an illustration of the anomalies now existing the case of a young Englishwoman who married an American. Her husband left her, while she stayed with her parents in England. "Under British law she is no longer British because she has married an American," he said, "and in American law she is not an American because she is residing in England. "She is now 22 or 23, tied to a man who does not live with her or support her. She is, in the present state of the law, without a country, without a nationality, and without means of getting free."