WAIT FOR DIVORCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19777, 3 November 1938, Page 11

WAIT FOR DIVORCE

DELAY IN BRITAIN

LONDON, Aug. 31

Hundreds of people are having to wait a year before they can obtain a divorce. Many will have to wait 18 months.

They include women who were deserted by their husbands 10 or 12 years ago, and who hoped to gain their freedom without further delay under the ne\V A. P. Herbert Divorce Act.

F6ur hundred cases were left over when the Law Courts were closed at the end of July for ten weeks’ . vacation.

This congestion is in spite of the fact that the number of divorce judges was raised last session from three to five.

The delay is due maihly to the difficulty in working certain sections of -.he Herbert Act.

The five divorce judges are still considering in committee how to interpret clauses allowing divorce for desertion or insanity.

"I know of cases put down last year which are still outstanding,” Mrs. Seaton-Tiedeman, hon. secretary of the Divorce LaW Reform Union, said. "Now they cannot be dealt with until the middle of October at the earliest. Most of them will not be reached this year. "Then there will be another six months to Viait before the decree is made absolute.

"They are, as a rule, undefended cases —people who have waited for years for the opportunity to remarry.

“In some cases parents are anxious to marry in order that children now on the way may be born in wedlock. Because of the delay many children may be born illegitimate.”