DIVORCE LAWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1920, Page 8

DIVORCE LAWS

AN AMENDMENT URGED

SIR BASSETT EDWARDS'S REMARKS.

Some interesting- comments in regard to the divorce law were made at Wellington on Saturday, by his Honour Sir Bassett Edwards, after the hearing of evidence in a petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of desertion. His Honour, in remarking that he would consider his verdict, said that this might be a case in which it would be desirable to make an order

in the interests of both parties. The law at once time in New Zealand allowed, a party to apply for restitution of conjugal rights, and if the order to do so was not complied with in the specified time, it could be made the ground of desertion. In England and New South Wales, and,

his Honour believed, in ether Australian States, this law obtained. Owing, however, to an incautious! remark made once at New Plymouth by the late Mr. Justice Denniston a good many years ago, when his Honour, during the hearing of a case for the restitution of conjugal rights, said: '"'Now, come on, Mr. so-and-so, play your part of the farce," an

alteration was made. "It was a small thing to say," said his Honour, "an idle joke; but it has borne rather disastrous consequences. It was seized upon, and legislation was passed repealing that very reasonable, very wholesome protection, which, as I have said before, eminently tended to morality; and no"w it is, absolutely necessary, according to the law, to prove not .less than four years' desertion. In other

words, for four years a man or woman, who know from the experienqe of their past" Fives that they can no longer live together as husband and wife, are compelled to remain neither husband nor wife for four years." Well, one could imagine how in most cases (fortunately not in the cast? under review) such a. thing- could not be hi the interests of morality. In this case-there was no suggestion of immorality on the part of either party, but unless he could be satisfied" that the law regarding desertion as it now stood was* complied with, the petitioner was without remedy.

"It is to be hoped," said his Honour, "that the Legislature will awaken to a sense of the injury that has been done in the past. The whole trend of legislation in England has been to facilitate the dissolution of ties w"hen they can no longer be productive of good. The recommendations that have been made by a Commission of most eminent personsi at Home, including the President of' the Divorce Court, went very far towards facilitating the terminativ.-i ot relations when they could r i longer

be relations except in name. I fervently hope that the Legislature, even during the coming session of Parliament, if it is possible, will seo fit to restore the law to what it was before this unfortunate remark of Mr. Justice Denniston, and to which it is in England and in certain communities of Australia, in which the conditions of life ar e practically the same as our own."