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There was no question of any defect in the form
of the marriage ceremony under Irish Law. Nor
was it suggested that either the wife or the registrar
who performed the ceremony were deceived in any
way as to the status of the husband. The wife was
well-aware of the husband's earlier marriage and of
its dissolution
in England;
the husband was
described in the marriage certificate as " divorced ".
The wife based her case on the provisions of
article 41 of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland,
Section 3, subsection 3 of which provided "No
person whose marriage has been dissolved under the
civil law of any other State but is a subsisting valid
marriage under the law for the time being in force
within the jurisdiction of the Government and
Parliament established by this Constitution shall be
capable of contracting a valid marriage within that
jurisdiction during the lifetime of the other party
to the marriage so dissolved."
In Mayo-Perrott
v.
Mayo Perrott (1958) I.R. 336
the plaintiff, who had been the successful petitioner
in this Court for dissolution of her marriage, sued in
the High Court of Ireland for the unpaid balance of
costs awarded to her in the suit.
It was held by
Mr. Justice Murnaghan, at first instance, and affirmed
by the Supreme Court on appeal, that the order for
costs could not be severed from the substantive
order for divorce and could not be enforced in Eire,
being repugnant to Eire's policy on divorce. In the
Supreme Court two of the Judges, Chief Justice
Maguire and Mr. Justice Kingsmill Moore, con
sidered the question whether or not the English
decree of divorce would be recognised by the Irish
Courts as valid to dissolve the marriage, and their
views differed completely. The Chief Justice said
that subsection 3 said as plainly as it could be said
that a marriage dissolved under the law of another
state remained in the eyes of the law of Eire a
subsisting valid marriage. His Lordship differed
with obvious hesitation from the Chief Justice
in this construction of the Irish Constitution, but
his Lordship did not understand the subsection to
say, plainly or at all, that a marriage dissolved by
the Court of another State remained in the eyes of
the law of Eire a subsisting valid marriage. As
Mr. Justice Kingsmill Moore pointed out, no doubt
the Oireachtas could pass a law that no dissolution
of marriage wherever affected, even where the
parties were domiciled in the country of the Court
pronouncing the decree, was to be effective to
dissolve the pre-existing marriage. But it had not
done so, and the law existing when the Constitution
was passed was that a divorce effected by a foreign
Court of persons domiciled within its jurisdiction
was valid in Ireland.
It was highly unlikely that the Constitution of
Ireland intended, without clear words, to reverse
a practically universal rule of private international
law. His Lordship could find nothing in article 41
to suggest that the Courts, in the absence of further
legislation, were entitled to do otherwise than regard
as valid and effectual a divorce granted by the Courts
of a foreign country where the parties were domiciled
in that country. His Lordship therefore found that
the law of Eire recognised the validity of the decree
of dissolution pronounced by the English High
Court, dissolving the marriage between the husband
and his first wife, and also recognised the validity
of the marriage celebrated in Eire between him and
the petitioner.
The petition therefore failed and
must be dismissed.—
The Times,
zyth June, 1961.
Charitable purposes—benefit to section of community—
public element.
The members of a trade union, though they
include most of those in their industry, are not
a section of the community for the purpose ofmaking
a trust for them charitable.
Under a trust deed the trustees were to provide
for members of a trade union, which had as members
most of those working in the printing industry,
a convalescent home, and a home for poor and aged
members. Held, that the trusts as they stood were
not charitable because the convalescent home was
not provided for a section of the community, but
that the deed was an imperfect trust provision which
was validated for the period since 3oth July, 1954,
on terms that the convalescent home be used only
for poor members :
Re Mead's Trust Deed;
Briginshaw
v.
National Society of Operative Printers
and Assistants, 105 S.J. 569 ;
(1961) 2 All E.R. 836,
Cross J. (applying observations of Lord Simonds in
Oppenheim
v.
Tobacco Securities Trust Co. (1951)
C.L.C. 1129 and considering Re Wykes (1961)
2 C.L. 28).
Misprision of felony—ingredients of offence.
Misprision of felony is an indictable misdemeanour
which is committed by one who, knowing that
a felony has been committed, and having a reasonable
opportunity to disclose his knowledge, does not
inform the police or other proper authority of all
material facts known to him. It is neither an element
of the offence that the concealment should be for
the benefit of the accused nor that it should consist
in a positive.
Per Lord Denning :
Non-disclosure may be due
to a claim of right in good faith. Quaere, whether
the offence comprehends the concealment of a
contemplated felony.
S., knowing that certain persons had stolen
firearms from a U.S.A.F. station in Norfolk, did not
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