DIVORCED WITHOUT BEING HEARD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 5

DIVORCED WITHOUT BEING HEARD

N.Z. WIFE OF AMERICAN CASE WHICH REFLECTS ON UNITED STATES LAM. (P.A.) Auckland, Dec. 20. The manner in which a New Zealand wife of an Aferican serviceman may find herself divorced under United States law without adequate opportunity of being represented at the hearing in America, is illustrated by a case reported by a member of an Auckland legal firm. It was stated that in this particular instance, since funds were available to enable counsel to be briefed. Subsequently, in the United States, it had been found possible to have the decision set aside, but the Auckland solicitor concerned said that in more usual circumstances the woman couid well find herself divorced without alimony and without. means of taking suitable action. Ten days after a visiting United States officer and a New Zealand girl were married, the groom was posted away from New Zealand, the solicitor said. The bride was expecting to join her husband in America, had sent certain of her personal belongings in advance, but, subsequehtly, coolness was apparent in the husband’s letters, and finally he said the only course was to move for a divorce. “I communicated with him. asking that his attorney should get in touch with me so that the terms of the proposed divorce could be discussed,” the solicitor added. “I got no reply, but my client was served with a petition for divorce on grounds of gross neglect of duty. This document, was sent to my client from America by ordinary mail. It was. issued on September 20, and arrived in New Zealand late in October, or early in November, the case being set down for hearing on November 6.” Insufficient time remained to enable the wife to be represented at the hearing,” he said. He cabled, only to find that a divorce had been granted, and lhe wile received formal notice, this time by air mail. “It was really a case of divorce proceedings being issued with no real prospet of having the wife represented and the divorce being granted,” the solicitor concluded, “in New Zealand Courts one has to give adequate time for the respondent to plead.” The solicitor added that consent lo the publication in New Zealand of the circumstances had been given by the wife’s father in case it might assist any other New Zealand girls in like predicament.