The court did not hear argument on the merits of this application, but determined it on the preliminary point of whether or not the matter had been properly brought before the Constitutional Court. More
After hearing counsel we allowed the appeal on the turn. Counsel for the appellant has requested that we provide our reasons in writing for this decision in light of the peculiar facts of this case and its wider impact on similar situations for the issues arising from a charge under s 79 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23](“the Criminal Law Code”). More
The plaintiff issued summons seeking an order for divorce of their civil marriage contracted on 16 April 1993. He sought a decree of divorce and other ancillary issues. The defendant entered an appearance to defend and subsequent pleadings thereto. At pretrial conference stage the parties came up with a joint PTC minute. At trial the issues were narrowed down by consent of both the plaintiff and the defendant. The parties agreed that the marriage relationship between them had irretrievably broken down to such an extent that there are no reasonable prospects of restoration of a normal marriage relationship. More
At the end of the hearing of this matter, we allowed the appeal with costs. An order as set out hereunder was issued:
1. The appeal be and is hereby allowed with costs.
2. The judgment of the court a quo is set aside and in its place the following is substituted:
(a) The application for summary judgment is dismissed.
(b) The second defendant is given unconditional leave to defend the plaintiff’s claim. More
This application was filed as an urgent chamber application and although I had misgivings about its urgency I decided to set it down because it concerned a project of national interest. I therefore felt that I could not do justice to such an important matter by declining to hear it on my preliminary view that it did not deserve to be heard on an urgent basis. For this reason I directed that it be set down so that the parties could ventilate on the issue of urgency. More
