Wusau: Mr. CE, Sherwin for pet Bejure Juige P. G
NAL for pet the marriage of Mrs, Galina Pearce represented by Mr. CE. Sherwin Mr. M. Pearce swith costs Assistant. Judge Supreme Cour The full text of the The petitioner in this suit prays Court to exercise its discretion (grant her a decree of dissolution 'OF her marriage to the respondent on the urannd of his adultery. Their domieil in China was, by leave, esta plished on affidavit sworn by the re-respondent at Tientsin- on June "The parties were married at His Majesty's Cv sulate-General at Shianghai on January 24, 1923, and, except for a six months holiday to Australia 1926, lived and cohabited there UND the middle "of January. 1930, when the respondent went for a hol day to Hongkong sand the petitioner, at his suggestion, to live with rela~ ions in Shanghai, For three or four months previously they had not been fon good terms with each other, and on his return from Hongkong the respondent went to live by. himself hotel, making the petitioner an allowance for her support. Some six months later she moved to a private lodging, but on February 10, 1992, Joined the respondent on the s. Tanda and went with him again to Australia, They returned to Shanghai In Novem= ber and stayed for five days at the Astor House Hotel, On November 15, however, the respondent left the peti-toner there and went to live at the Navy YMCA. he told her to find lodging for herself and she did so, Since that date she has not cohabited with the respondent, but he contrl= buted in some measure to her support Uunti? September, 1935. Shortly after the respondent's. desertion the poti-Hloner obtained employment and she now in a better position than she was then, "On her evidence and that. of her witnesses I'am satisfied that the respondent committed the offence with which he is charged by her.
Prior to the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1837 divorce a mensa et toro. was obtained! in the Ecclesiastical Courts of the realm and @ vineuto by Parliament, but by that Act the jurisdiction was transferred. in toto to the newly created court for Givoree. Section 31 of the Act pro~ vited, however, that the court should not be bound to pronounce a decree for dissolution of marriage If it found that the petitioner had during the marriage "been guilty of adultery: inter alia, That section was repealed, Dut reproduced in section 178 of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Con solidation) Act, 1925, ax amended by section 4 of the Matrimonial Causes with the addition of the!
and! may dismiss the peti ier the words "decree which had been substituted in the two later Acts for the words such decree" of the enactment of 1857, Hence the discretion which is invoked by the petitioner in the prerent ease, In Lautour Her Majesty's Proctor (0-HIC. 645). a ease which often been cited sine the pssinye that Act. a petitioner who had lived in adultery. after decree ist ant against the refusal of} the appeal the Lord Chaneettor, Lord. St, Leonarils, doubted whether the Court was at liberty {0 pronounce a decree n the petitioner's favour. He said:
ceaninot come {0 the conclusion hat the Court had any stich power. The! Court was not bound to pronounce decree for dissolution of the mar= nave; but T conceive there is a difference between declaring that the Court shall not be bound to dissolve the marriage, and declaring that under those eireumstanees the Court had a discretionary power to. dissolve i. It is not very material to press the distinction {0 the discretion the upon bills for divorce. Lord Chelisford declared the exercise of diser inthe ease in question to have "very wholesome," and Lord mnworth considered i woul have umely wrong if the Court, exercised its ise othe! wise than it had; on the general ques ton he said. guardedly' that he did not know that he quite agreed with the Lord Chancellor on the question discretion, though he thought that vers likely there might be caves in which there was a larger diveretion in the Cowt th able Lord thought it express
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.