DECREES NISI GRANTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1936, Page 5

DECREES NISI GRANTED

SEPARATION AGREEMENTS. [PEB PBEBS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, December 18. The legality of agreements to separate between parties who separated immediately after their marriage and never lived together was questioned by Mr Justice Smith in two divorce cases that came before him in the Supreme Court here last month. He then expressed the opinion that it was against public policy for parties to go through the form of marriage when neither ever really intended to live with the other. In judgments issued to-day, His Honor granted decrees nisi to the petitioners in both cases in which he reserved judgment. Referring to one case, His Honor said there was a genuine agreement made after the marriage for immediate separation, not an agreement made before the marriage for future separation. The law did not frown upon the former though it did upon the latter. In the other case, His Honor said that before the marriage the parties had agreed that they would separate and not live together as man and wife. It appeared that in the street after the marriage the parties discussed the situation as married persons and then separated. Since that separation they had met each other several times, but had merely reiterated their agreement not to live together, and they had not in fact lived together since the marriage. “I have come to the conclusion that I am justified on authority in inferring that the parties did in the street after the marriage agree, in their capacity as married persons, to an immediate separation, and that they acted upon that agreement immediately.”