UNUSUAL APPLICATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1923, Page 10

UNUSUAL APPLICATION.

LEAVE TO MARRY. JUDICIAL DECLARATION SOUGHT. A rare application was sought at the Supreme Court, Auckland (writes the Times correspondent), when Miss Lilian Jean Cook (Mr. F. J. Mouat), a young girl of 18 years, living at Royal Oak, petitioned for a judicial .declaration under the Marriage Act that her intended marriage with Mr. Albert Harvey Liley, of Royal Oak, master painter, is a proper one. Mr. Mouat explained that the father of the girl had withheld his consent for a considerable time. The girl being. a minor, the consent of her father was necessary according to law. The action of the father in withholding his consent had compelled the daughter to seek a judicial declaration that the intended marriage is a proper one.. At the last moment the father (Mr. Isaac Cook, of Royal Oak, blacksmith’s striker) had delivered his consent in the prescribed form at his (Mr. Mouat’s) office, but had failed to respond to a demand for costs. Mr. E. J. Prendergast, on behalf of the father, opposed the application for costs, remarking that if £bsts were awarded against the petitioner they would not be recoverable, she being an infant in the eyes of the law. After lengthy argument, His Honor ■Mr. Justice Stringer reserved his decision, stating that he would award cost% to th'e petitioner if he had power to do’ so.